


Citizenship

by qwanderer



Series: Midnight Mystery [23]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Brainwashing, F/M, Family, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Magic, Technobabble, against dragons, children in traumatic situations, golden apples, racial violence, striving to belong, thaumobabble, traumatic medical problems
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-02
Updated: 2014-06-18
Packaged: 2018-01-03 07:12:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 25,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1067548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qwanderer/pseuds/qwanderer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daire Rogers is growing up fierce and brave, like her father, and a determined defender of justice, like her mother. She isn't five yet, but she has a lot to deal with.</p><p>Almost as much as the adults around her, her family, the Avengers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place in a Phase 1 compliant branch of the MCU, in approximately 2019. This is not a great place to enter the Midnight Mystery series; see the series page for a list of recommended entry points.
> 
> The first chapter is unrepentant fluff. It gets heavier.

Steve Rogers sat in a huge armchair by the fire in his and Sif's house on Asgard, a gurgling six-month-old boy in his lap, chewing on one of his sleeves. The beautiful blue material, embroidered with white flowers, was becoming very quickly sodden, but Steve didn't care at all. 

"You like my shirt, Abie?" he asked the boy, ruffling his sparse brown hair. "Sure you wouldn't rather wait for dinner? I'm making mashed potatoes." 

Abie only gurgled, smiling through his mouthful of fabric. 

"Smashed potatoes?!" Daire asked, popping up next to him and clutching her stuffed owl. "Will Hulk come and smash them for us?" 

Steve laughed. "It's not quite a Hulk-sized job, Daire," he said, "but I'll be sure to keep that in mind for next time I have to feed an army. Actually, last time I cooked for an army, Bruce did the potatoes. He's good with them. You think Hulk has the same talent?" 

"Yeah!" Daire declared. "Potato master! Hulk Smash Potatoes!" She jumped up and down, miming Hulk's pounding fists. Her golden-brown curls bounced. 

"Well, since Hulk isn't here, do you want to help out instead?" Steve asked her. "Potatoes should be just about boiled." 

"Can I, Mama? Can I Hulk Smash potatoes?" she asked Steve. 

"Absolutely," he answered, vaulting out of the chair and causing Abie to shriek with delight. He strode into the kitchen, and Daire followed, Ivan the plush owl dangling from one hand. 

The kitchen in the Asgard house was a strange blend of old, older, and very new technology. Running water came from a rain cistern, and there was no electricity in the house, only fire. But Steve carried propane tanks with him sometimes so that he could cook on a proper gas stove, and there was a tiny icebox that Tony had made for him which ran off the power from an arc pod, and it mostly contained the milk that Sif pumped for Abie when she couldn't be at home for most of the day. She had a PERB unit that she could use to deposit the milk into the cold enclosure from anywhere on Asgard. 

He set Abie on a blanket in the corner and rolled up his spit-damp sleeves before he opened the pot to check the potatoes. "Yup," he said as he turned off the gas and hauled the pot to the sink. "Just about ready for smashing." He drained the water, and moved the potatoes to a bowl, which he set on the heavy wooden table before going to find the potato masher. Daire climbed onto a chair and stood on it eagerly, Ivan the owl at last coming to rest next to the big bowl of potatoes. 

Daire was stronger than the average human four-and-a-half-year-old, but she was no Hulk, and soon she was calling, "Mama! Help me, they won't smash properly!" 

Steve withdrew from where he was checking the huge Asgardian game bird in the brick oven, closed the door and returned to Daire's side. "That's pretty good," he said, examining the flattened layer of potatoes over the top of the mound. "Want me to take over and finish up?" 

"Yeah," said Daire, handing over the masher and watching in fascination as her mother used his Captain America arms to plow through the potatoes, destroying their lumpiness and transforming them into smooth creamy peaks and hollows. 

Next Steve got the roc out of the oven, while Daire went over and put Abie back in the middle of his blanket, which he had nearly escaped by scooting. They were just contemplating setting the table when they heard the front door fly open. "Hello!" a loud female voice cried. 

"Daddy!" Daire yelled in answer, and ran in to meet Sif, who lifted Daire high up in the air and swung her around before pulling her in tight and kissing her head. "Mama helped me smash potatoes!" 

"Helping with the kitchen chores, eh?" Sif asked, raising her eyebrows at Steve, who was coming out of the kitchen with Abie in his arms. 

"Well, Abie here isn't quite old enough yet to help," Steve said, smiling at his husband. "Besides, she was playing at being the Hulk." 

"Ah, well, then," Sif said, kissing Daire's head again before setting her down. "Carry on. Smash all you like." 

Daire gave her mock-roar and made fists again for her father. Sif laughed indulgently. Then she approached Steve and her young son. 

"Ah, young Abraham, and how are you today?" Sif rumbled at the baby boy as Steve handed him over and she held him close. "Keeping busy drooling on everything as usual? Serious business," she said, kissing him, tickling his stomach and then joining in his laughter. 

Steve wrapped his arms around both of them, and he felt Daire's slim arm encircle his leather-clad knee, completing the circuit. "Welcome home," he said to Sif. 

Sif pulled him in for his own set of kisses, as warm in character but deeper. "Thank you," she answered. "And I smell a feast. What a perfect wife you are for this hungry warrior." 

Steve chuckled. "Still haven't gotten used to that," he said. "But it's good to hear. We were just about to set the table. I'll finish up while you change out of your armor." He took Abie from her arms again, and she strode to the bedchambers to change. 

Over dinner they spoke of their days, Sif about how Jane had passed her first challenge, the Asgardian version of a written exam, an initial test to check her knowledge and her grasp of the practical skills of living on Asgard. Sif had been her judge on the subject of armor care. Steve spoke of how Daire had done in her lessons that morning. She had a loose homeschooling program put together by Steve and Jarvis, with some input from Loki, and recently she had been working on both letters and runes, learning to spell everyone's name in both. 

Daire contributed her opinion on the superiority of runes, saying they were easier because they had less curvy bits and also thorn was the height of efficiency and why didn't English have a letter that sounded like that? 

After dinner they sat by the fire, Sif holding a sleeping Abie and Steve with a squirming Daire on his lap, asking questions about the Avengers and when they'd be going back to Earth and how long until Uncle Tony got the internet to work on Asgard? 

Steve was just explaining that he could hardly understand what Tony got up to in his lab, let alone predict it, when there was a heavy knock at the door. 

"Is it guests? Should we dress?" Daire stood and looked at the door resentfully. She hated the silence required by Asgardian manners. 

"I'll see who it is," Steve answered, and went for the door. He looked through the slightly textured glass. "No, we're fine, it's Uncle Thor," he said as he opened the door. 

"Uncle Thor!" Daire cried, running to him and throwing her arms up in the direction of most of him. Thor obligingly swung her up, seating her on one broad shoulder. 

"Greetings, Daire Sifdottir! How fare you?" he asked. 

"I wrote your name today," she said. "It's much easier in runes. Why doesn't everywhere use runes?" 

"Because there are as many ways of writing words as there are people who write them," he answered. "All the Realms are different, and if it were not so, the universe would be much less interesting." 

"Well, I like runes," Daire said. 

"Any news about Jane?" Steve asked, looking at Thor's not entirely jovial expression with slight worry. 

"No, she will not face another challenge until tomorrow," Thor told him. "What brings me here is a threat to Reginunn and his family. It has become known that they wish to associate more closely with the Aesir, and that has led to many raiders trying to take their trove, believing that their gold belongs rightfully in Aesir hands. Heimdall told me that they plan to attack en masse tomorrow, but I cannot leave the city while Jane's challenges are underway." 

Steve looked worried. "Yeah, I see the problem. Sif, do you need to be in the city for the challenge tomorrow, too?" 

"No," she answered. "I can go to defend the dragons. But what of the children? I would not have them on Asgard without us while anti-dragon sentiment is so high." 

"You're right," said Steve. "I'll take them to Earth, find someone to watch them and then I'll come back and join you." 

"We're going back to Jarvis and internet and Avengers!" Daire said sing-song from Thor's shoulder. "Who will watch us?" 

"I don't know who's around," Steve answered, holding out his arms to take her from Thor. "Let's go pack your bags. I think Darcy and Peter are away at a conference, telling people about dragons and showing their photos. Aunt Natasha's on mission. Maybe one of your human uncles, or Uncle Josh." 

"Nobody else has a blue uncle," Daire said, squirming and laughing. 

"That's right, you're very lucky," Steve said, setting her down in her room. "Now go make sure you have everything you want for a few days." He went to pack Abie's bags. 

* * *

Steve settled his kids into their Stark Tower apartment, tucking Abie into his crib and settling Daire with her much-missed computer access, and told Jarvis to tell him if they needed anything before going to look for the others. 

He went in search of Tony first, since Jarvis told him that the billionaire was in one of his labs, a relatively public area, while Bruce and Clint were in their room, and Loki was currently off-grid. 

"Hey, Capsicle," Tony said when he entered. "Didn't expect you back for another couple of days. Jane get kicked to the curb by that holier-than-thou-literally tyrant already?" 

"No, she's doing well so far," Steve said. "But the dragon-related violence has been escalating and we really wanted to set the kids up as far away from that as possible. I'm planning on joining Sif in settling it as soon as I can, but I need someone to look after them for us." 

Tony's dawning expresson and horrified silence might have been comical if Steve didn't really need someone to step up right now and help him. "No. _Oh_ no," Tony said, backing up slightly. "Rugrats? Really not my thing. Besides, I'm busy. So is Josh. I need him for things. Hey, you should ask Bruce. He's been dying to hang with the Caplets. Go on, do that. Don't come back." And Tony disappeared through his dimensional door. 

Steve sighed. "I don't suppose he's likely to change his mind?" he asked the not-so-empty air. 

"No, Captain Rogers, I do not believe so. Also, he is no longer within the domain of my surveillance, and Jasper refuses to share his data with me. I believe I am beginning to dislike my lunar successor." 

"Nuts. Well, what about Bruce and Clint? Would they mind me stopping in now?" 

Jarvis answered to the effect that they were available, although the moment Steve stepped into their living area, he could see that Clint was on his way out. He was halfway into his coat, and he had a boot in one hand and was hunting for the other. Bruce, on the other hand, greeted Steve with a wave and a little twist of a smile. 

"Hey, Steve, what's up?" he asked. 

"Things are getting a little bit hairy on Asgard, so I'm dropping the kids here and trying to find someone to watch them for a couple days." 

Bruce's expression held alarm, surprise, and, just a little proof that Tony wasn't talking completely out of his ass, a little glimmer of interest and joy. Then he frowned. "I really don't think I'm the guy you're looking for." 

Clint turned his attention from the search for his second boot to look at Bruce. "Hey, maybe you are. You wanna let him decide?" The tone of it was one of reminder, a facet of an argument they had had many times. 

"I trust you with them," Steve agreed. "Can't think of anyone better." 

"What about _any other Avenger?_ " Bruce said, frustration mixing with disbelief. 

"Tony swore at me when I asked him and now he's hiding on the moon, think he's holed up with Loki. If you don't want to do it..." 

Bruce breathed out noisily. "I didn't say _that._ I just want to make sure you're sure. And that there's someone else around... just in case I get upset." 

Clint stopped again to look at the both of them. "You know what? I'm gonna call up Kate, say today's not a good time for lessons after all, unless she wants to come to the Tower. I'll be on call for the brats. But Bruce, you're top of the list, okay? I'm just backup." 

Bruce looked at him with knowing affection and annoyance. "All right, fine. I suppose I can handle that." But the joy dancing in his eyes belied his reluctant acceptance. 

"Thank you," Steve told them. "Both of you. I'm gonna get back to Asgard, back up Sif. I need to know someone's got them. Having you two here is a weight off my mind." 

Clint grinned and winked at Steve. Bruce shook his head, but he was smiling.


	2. Chapter 2

So Uncle Bruce had been the one to put the kids to bed, which, in Abie's case, just meant checking in to see that he was still sleeping. Bruce stood over him for a moment, watching him breathe and deciding whether to reach out and stroke his cheek. But he didn't. 

Daire demanded a story, which Bruce was happy to read, and then a goodnight kiss, which he determinedly allowed himself to provide, and Hulk was getting downright annoyed at Bruce's caution, so he quickly finished the tuck-in procedure and shut Daire's door. He stood outside for a moment, appreciating that he could be a part of this beautiful family, no matter how small a part. 

"Javvie, why is Uncle Bruce so sad?" he heard from the quiet on the other side of the door. 

Bruce did not stick around to hear Jarvis's answer. 

* * *

The sun rose over the Asgardian wilderness, and two raiders, eager to get their pick of the hoard that would soon be decimated, snuck ahead to see if they could catch the dragons unawares. 

But they rounded a rocky corner, and there was the Goddess of War, armor shining, feet planted slightly apart and the tip of a hand and a half sword resting between them, arms leaning against the guard. 

"I would ask you what you think your business is here," Sif said deceptively casually. 

The raiders visibly quailed. It only took the lifting of her sword point out of its place in the dirt before they were running, back to where they had come from, presumably, to join the others who waited in force. 

Then Sif heard a step behind her, and she swung around, but it was Steve, clad in the colors of his nation and hefting his shield, ready to join in battle. She grinned at him. "Captain!" she greeted him. "I see you have come to join the fray!" 

"Fast as I could," he answered, nodding. "Bruce and Clint have the kids. Anything happen while I was gone?" 

"Nothing of note," she said. "I have yet to swing my blade. I think the raiders were not prepared to have real warriors facing them, and now they will know, but they have never faced anything like you. Once they know your prowess, we may send them running yet again without spilling a drop of blood." 

"We can always hope," Steve said. "But I wouldn't bet on it. Most people who go out to fight are determined to defend their way of life, and I'd guess that applies to dragon slayers as well." 

Sif told him the gist of the plan: they would take one quarter of the perimeter, while Reginunn, Hallkatla and her brother Anghamarr took the other three. They took their positions and waited. 

The raiders were much more daring en masse, but still, they were no match for Captain America, Lady Sif, and three full-grown, battle-hardened dragons protecting their young. 

And the outlaw Aesir did fall back after a first push towards the hoard, and Hallkatla took the lull as an opportunity to go and talk to Steve. 

"As a mother," she said, "you can understand how frightened I am for my children right now. I envy you the ability to move Abraham and Daire to safer realms. But Midgard is unknown to us, and beyond our reach, and the other realms even moreso. And yet I am becoming desperate enough to ask if you could find a way to bring us there." 

"Tony and I have been discussing that, actually," Steve said, patting Kat on her huge shimmering blue nose. "The PR experts are making real headway with generating positive opinions towards dragons among the people of Earth, and Tony's got an old house on a decent-sized piece of property, not too far from the tower. He's willing to offer it to you and your family." 

"Truly?" Hallkatla asked, great eyes glistening. 

"I can't promise less danger," Steve warned. "Earth is full of unexpected disasters and people who want to cause destruction for any number of reasons. But I can promise there will be more people ready to come to your aid." 

"I will consider that, then," said Kat. "And send my undying thanks to your Man of Iron." 

"I will," Steve promised. "And we still have to figure a way to get all of you, and your hoard, through to Earth. Tony calculates that nothing short of the Bifrost would move everything at once, and he, Jane and Josh are working on building a second one for Earth, but it's still years away. They haven't gotten around the question of how to operate it without the kind of knowledge that Heimdall has. So for now, the contingency plan is for Josh to teleport your kids and a bit of your hoard - he says that's just about his limit, even at his peak of power - and the rest of us would make a run for the Bifrost. And we're still not sure if Heimdall would come down on our side. We're trying to think of something else." 

"I hope it does not come to that," said Hallkatla, "but it is heartening to know that the request does not come as a shock." 

"Of course not," said Steve. "I worry about your children almost as much as mine." 

"If the other inhabitants of Earth are half as extraordinary as you," Hallkatla replied, "I think our family will do just fine there." 

And she flew back to her position on the perimeter, head held higher, and more hopeful by far. 

* * *

Panic and anger and desperation shot through Bruce, and he struggled against them; he feared what would happen if he lost control. No, not here, not now. Why not was unclear; all he could see was blackness, all he could hear was a hissing, continuous and unending, almost a scream, like a tea kettle, or a woman, or a little girl. He fought between action and inaction, between holding on and letting go. He couldn't move properly, and the panic was winning, and oh no, no, not this time.... 

Then there was a hand on his shoulder, and a softer noise, a shush, so familiar, and he woke with a jolt all through his body, but this was a bed he knew, and a touch he knew - Clint's - and everything was normal, or relatively so. He breathed deep, seeking Hulk, trying not to shut out his other half as old habits would have, trying to settle them both. 

Clint was quiet through this process, knowing to wait for Bruce to speak first. But the hand was there, and it helped, and Hulk was confused and unsettled but willing to listen when Bruce told him that he had been wrong, there was no danger, and Clint was right here, right by their side. 

Bruce calmed, and he curled into Clint's side, seeking comfort, and Clint's hand moved across his back. It was still a few minutes before he felt ready to speak. 

"This is ridiculous," he said finally. "I know I have control, I trust Hulk to do the right thing most of the time. But for so long I've been afraid of certain things, and I can't just stop being afraid because it's not logical anymore. There's too much of it. Too much fear and rage and awful things. They'll always come back." 

"It's okay," said Clint. "Hey, you don't have to be perfect. Nobody is. You're doing great. You know that, right?" 

Bruce grunted noncommittally. "Come with me this time, all right? I can do this, I just want you there. Please?" 

"Yeah, of course," said Clint. "I... sorry if that was a little bit pushy, yesterday. I didn't know it would be that bad." 

"No, it's... nothing you did. I need to deal with all of this." 

"All right," said Clint, mild and amiable. "I'm with you. Especially if you're gonna make one of your famous breakfasts. Abie eating eggs yet?" 

"I don't think so. Jarvis has the list, but I'll probably just give him a little banana and one of the bottles Steve brought. Eggs sound good for me and Daire, though. Anything else you want?" 

Clint smiled. He knew there was very little that would bring Bruce out of one of his slumps more reliably than planning a meal. "Chocolate chip pancakes," he said, secure in the knowledge that the more complicated the request, the more Bruce would enjoy filling it. Also? Chocolate. 

"That solves the problem of what to do with the rest of the banana," Bruce mused, his brain as always examining factors and chasing efficiency. He climbed out of bed and went to find clothes. "Jarvis, any ingredients missing from the Rogers kitchen?" 

"Only if you wish to add your habitual dash of cardamom to the standard recipe," the AI answered. "Also, I should inform you that Abraham is awake and requesting attention." 

Clint rolled out of bed and threw on a shirt to go with his pajama pants. "You about ready, or should I go get that?" he called to Bruce. 

Bruce came out of their kitchen, pocketing the cardamom, and said, "I'm ready if you are." 

They went up to the Rogers' apartment, Clint sticking like glue to Bruce's side as the physicist confronted the wailing of Abraham Sifson Rogers in his crib. Bruce picked up Abie and joggled him a bit, as he'd seen the others do so often, and Abie looked at him wide-eyed, and apparently decided that crying was overrated and opted for chewing on his fist instead. 

Bruce smiled, and Clint wanted to count that as a win, but the smile was a gentle, broken thing, and it hurt to look at, so Clint didn't count it as anything, just took it in and accepted it. Bruce changed Abie's diaper and then carried the boy into the Rogers' dining room, Clint still following closely and making faces at the kid. 

Breakfast went well, and Daire was positively delighted at the prospect of chocolate chip pancakes with bananas and peanut butter on top, and Clint had his with syrup and a side of eggs, and Bruce went with a little of everything. 

After that they went out to sit on the patio, which Daire and Abie liked even more than their parents, if that was possible, since they were growing up accustomed to the noise and rhythm of the huge city laid out beneath them. Daire played Mail Delivery Owl with Ivan and pieces of paper very carefully inscribed with "Uncol Clint" and "Uncl Bruse" and "Aby." 

She was running back and forth with them as if she were in a mighty hurry, and then she slowed, breathing hard. 

Breathing too hard. Her panicked eyes fell on her uncles. 

Bruce's eyes widened, and he asked, "Are you all right, Daire?" and Daire shook her head no, and Bruce rushed to her side without a second's hesitation. 

She was wheezing pretty badly, and Bruce laid her down with a chair cushion under her head, and told Jarvis to call for paramedics, and then he just talked to Daire, low and steady and calm, telling her that everything was going to be fine and to try to breathe slowly and deeply. 

Abie sensed the tension in the air and started to cry, but Clint swooped in and picked him up, bouncing him gently and whispering reassurances. The archer watched Bruce work with calm confidence, because he knew that Daire was in the best hands. One of those very gentle hands sought Daire's forehead, stroking back through her hair in a steady rhythm that would not waver, no matter what strength of emotion Bruce might feel. 

Dummy rolled in with the oxygen canister from the infirmary area, and Clint took it from him with a quick "Thanks, buddy" and handed it down to Bruce. 

"Daire, I'm going to help you get air, okay? I'm going to put this mask over your nose and it's going to give you more oxygen." 

Daire reached for it, and Bruce fitted it as best he could over her small face, and his other hand kept stroking her head, steadily, calmly. Daire's eyes became marginally less wild and panicked as the richer air found its way into her lungs and she didn't need to breathe quite so desperately. 

"Paramedics are in the elevator," Jarvis intoned solemnly from overhead. 

"Good. Daire, more healers are on their way here, with medicines that will help you breathe. They'll be here very soon. Everything's going to be fine." 

Two men and a woman exited the elevator, blue bags in hand. "Sir, please get out of our way," one of them said to Bruce. 

Bruce didn't. "I'm a certified first responder with extensive training. She's scared and she knows me. Tell me what to do or work around me." 

He kept his voice oh-so-carefully calm and level. The paramedic spoke an acknowledgement and got to work. They asked about how it had happened and her medical history, and Bruce answered quickly, precisely, and without stopping the calming motion of his hand on her head. 

"Family history of asthma and other respiratory diseases on her human side. She's half Asgardian, but that doesn't seem to make much of a difference in her physiology. Drugs seem to act the same way on Thor as they would on a human of his size when there's no magical interference." 

They decided on her medicine, and then Bruce explained to her that they were going to switch her mask for another one with the medicine in it. 

And the whole time, Clint watched Bruce, looking for any sign of loss of control, any danger. 

There was none of that. 

In fact, Clint recognized in Bruce that ironclad focus, the same way that when Clint was on mission, nothing bothered him because nothing else mattered. The mission was everything. He'd rarely seen it before; it certainly wasn't the way Hulk fought. It was only when someone really needed Bruce's skills, like Daire needed them now. 

That was the moment Clint realized that he wanted to marry Bruce. 

Kind of an idiotic thing to be thinking about right now, but that never really stopped Clint. 

The medicine worked at last, and then Daire was clinging to Bruce, looking miserable and frightened, so he pulled her into his arms and just held her there. And he was nothing but confidence and comfort and safety. 

And he didn't let her go again for a long time. 


	3. Chapter 3

By the time Tony and Loki managed to get themselves together and scramble back from the moon, the paramedics were packing up and the panic had subsided. Tony felt a funny mixture of guilt for not being there, relief that someone else had handled it, and more guilt for the relief and that he'd led Bruce into the situation. But he set his face into a sort of businesslike self-mockery, and all he said was, "Glad it was him, I'd probably have panicked." 

"You would have done what was necessary," Loki reassured Tony. 

"Psh," Tony said, scrunching up his face. "I'm not that great about dealing with medical stuff, look how bad I do with me. Anyway I was right, Bruce did great, he knows his stuff. And now he and the brat are tight. Look at 'em." He gestured across the room to where Daire was still tucked securely into Bruce's arms. "I would not deal well with that. I have to be building things." 

Loki peered at the thing Tony was putting together with his ever-moving hands. "What are you constructing, by the way?" he asked. 

"Compact cell tower, in essence," he said, picking up the gangly antennae'd thing and examining it from every angle. 

Loki frowned, and said, "Why?" 

"Just in case. Steve'll wanna know about this, one way or another. You ready to head out?" 

The blue man nodded. "The Bifrost, then?" 

"Creepy all-seeing imitator of a statue and all. We might need what he can tell us." He turned to look at the kid cuddled into Bruce's chest again. "We're gonna go try to get ahold of your parents, alright, Daire-bear?" 

She nodded firm agreement, then Tony gathered the equipment and moved to Loki's side, and the two of them vanished into the secret ways of Yggdrasil. 

As Loki had explained it, such a journey was actually made up of three parts, a jump to the nearest place where the worlds brushed each other, a slide through that singularity, then a final jump to their destination. The energy expended was determined by the distance between the singularity used and the start and end points, as well as the mass carried along. Loki didn't like to make this particular journey too often, but it was an easier trip than, say, Vanaheim, which seemed to have no gates at all in the Western hemisphere. 

They appeared on the Bifrost, outside the shining metallic structure where the Gatekeeper stood, and the first thing Tony did was pull out his PERBcomm, dialing Steve's unit. 

The team had learned the hard way that it was not always wise to have a wormhole open in your pocket mid-mission, into unknown conditions like contaminants, so the current design of the comms had a lid that was closed by default and a system of ringtones, pretty much like a phone. Tony was unsurprised when he got no answer, as he knew that Steve had expected to be in combat at some point today. 

"No answer," he relayed to Loki, who had been conversing quietly with Heimdall. "Steve up to his neck in dragon slayers or what?" 

It was Heimdall himself who answered. "Their foes were many, but their numbers are dwindling. I believe your fellow Avengers will soon triumph." 

Tony nodded, making a face part thoughtful smile, part grimace. Then he slid open his jury-rigged cell tower and gestured with it. "Any way I could set this up somewhere high up, maybe leave it there, might be handy to have a cell tower here, you think? Could even get you a phone so you could call people yourself, you've watched us enough to get the general idea, right?" He smirked at Heimdall. 

"Do what you wish," the helmeted man replied. "Your primitive device will not harm the Bifrost." The tiny lift of the corner of the Gatekeeper's mouth was an acknowledgement of Tony's tendency towards flyting, but neither of them had time right now to truly get into a battle of wits about which world had the better information system. Heimdall gestured to one of the suspension towers that held up the crystal length of the bridge. 

Loki thanked the gatekeeper, and led the way up one of the great curving cables that slanted up towards the tops of the towers. Tony followed, equipment in hand, occasionally swearing at the awkwardness of the climb. But eventually they made the top, and Tony set up his device, digging out his cell to give Steve another call. 

This time Cap picked up. 

"How - nevermind, _why._ Why are you calling me here, Tony? I'm kinda busy." 

"Daire had an asthma attack. Well, what looked like one." 

Steve stilled, would have gone down right then if Sif hadn't had his back. "Is she okay?" 

"Yeah, she's fine, a little freaked, I think. Bruce was right there, Jarvis and the bots helped, modern medicine at the speed of 21st century New York. Josh poked around a little, says it didn't do any damage, but he can't be sure it won't happen again. He suggests you meet up with us in Helheim when you're less busy. Safest place in the galaxy. Sound good to you?" 

Steve struggled to process the flood of information that had come out of Tony's mouth. "Helheim." 

"Yeah, Josh and I will pop over there with Daire, might bring Bruce and Abie too, we'll negotiate with Sir Rainbow of Brite here about the travel itineraries. And you can get him to send you over when you're ready." 

"It's a solid plan," Steve said, struggling to get his head back into the here and now. "We'll meet you there when we can." He hung up his cell phone, giving it one last bemused glance before pocketing it. 

Sif was tying up the last of their foes when he could finally register his surroundings properly again. 

"Daire had an asthma attack, you remember I told you about those?" Sif nodded, businesslike, but Steve knew her well enough to see the concern that underlay that. "Josh is taking her to Helheim, so she won't have to worry about it happening again before we figure out how to handle it. Tony said to meet them there." 

"We will need to deal with things here a little later, then," his husband said, jostling one of the prisoners unnecessarily with her knee to express her displeasure. "Jane's trials will end today. We can send Thor here in our stead." 

Steve frowned around at the fallen raiders. "After this, I don't really feel comfortable leaving Reggie's house unguarded, even for a few hours. But Daire needs us." 

Hallkatla's head came over the ridge, blinking huge slitted eyes at them. "Go," she said. "We can hold our own homestead for a few hours. I would not trust you with our borders if I had not seen your love for your little ones." 

Steve nodded at her. "Thanks for understanding," he said. "We'll send Thor your way as soon as we can." 

* * *

Once Tony and Loki had scrambled their way back down from the suspension tower with different amounts of grace, they went to talk to Heimdall. 

"So, I guess we're kinda in need of some transport, huh, us and Bruce and the kiddies. Whattya say, can we hitch a ride on your giant rainbow elevator to the stars?" 

"As much as I would like to help you," Heimdall said, "you are not a citizen of this realm, and cannot command the use of the Bifrost." 

Josh came up by Tony's side. "Speaking of citizenship, did Odin officially reinstate yours after King Loki stripped you of it?" he asked. 

Heimdall could tell it wasn't maliciously said, the sparkle in the red eyes indicating only humor and the slightest bit of a push towards leniency, towards twisting the law a little bit more to fit the situation. 

So, "No, he never spoke the words," Heimdall said. "I suppose I am no more citizen than you are, if it is the word of a king that does it, and the word of a king that undoes it." 

"Then will you, not-citizen, let us not-citizens pass your gates, for today?" 

Heimdall considered him for a long moment, then nodded. 

Loki sighed in relief. "Then let me conserve my power, and send us back to Earth, then await my word to bring the children and the doctor with us on our way to Niflheim." 

"This is a worthy cause," said Heimdall. "I would not deny Sif's children anything that they need." 

"And today," replied Loki, "that is all I ask." 

Heimdall seated his sword, and Tony, having gawked at the Bifrost in operation the last two or three times he had visited Asgard by it, managed to look somewhat nonchalant as the metal surrounding them began to spin and the wormhole formed in front of them. It would take a particularly observant eye to see how tightly Tony still clung to Loki as the swirling lights whisked them away. 

Well, Heimdall had that. And a small smile played over his lips as he watched them go. 

Then he turned his eye to where another question of citizenship was being discussed - that of Jane Foster. 

* * *

The beast came upon her suddenly, towering over her, and Jane let out an involuntary scream. It turned towards her, its huge, recognitionless, stalking eyes zeroing in on the surce of the noise. She screamed again, scrambling away behind some rocks, where she clapped a hand over her mouth to silence herself. 

That thing was the size of at least three destroyers, and dragons were one thing. Dragons could talk. But wildlife? Wildlife was definitely not Jane's thing. Animals were not her area. 

Jane was reminded then of all the stuff about good dog breeds with bad reputations that Darcy liked to reblog, and suddenly an overwhelming burst of laughter tried to escape her restraining hand at the image of Rose Witch telling the great beast to sit. 

The voice of Odin broke into her scattered thoughts, booming across the arena. 

"The human woman, Jane Foster, has failed to show courage in the face of danger. There is no place for her in our society." And on he went like that. 

That was crap. They hadn't even given her a proper chance! All defiance, Jane pulled herself together and examined her surroundings. 

She saw two huge, close-set outcroppings of stone, gauged the distance between them, their structure and possible composition, and the size of the beast's head. She positioned herself between them and then once again began screaming for all she was worth. 

The creature went for it. She could see its huge scaly snout approaching, feel its breath on her face. But she did not run. Her yelling regained that edge of genuine terror, but she did not move away. The thing wriggled into the crevice farther, by inches, unable to reach her but temptingly close. 

She took the spear they'd given her and wedged it backwards under the beast's chin - it wouldn't break the tough hide if she tried to fight the beast, but braced as it was against rock at the butt end and the thing's jaw at its tip, she hoped it would discourage the creature from withdrawing its head. 

Then, she backed out of the gap between the rocks and climbed up the side of one, tying the red flag around one of the beast's great antlers, as had been her task. 

The bilgesnipe thrashed, but cried out in pain, and stilled enough for her to secure the knot. Then she scrambled back. 

Odin was still droning on about a warrior's fortitude, but he was interrupted by a wave of cheering from the gathered masses. He struck Gungnir against the stone of his dais for silence before looking around to see what had happened. 

Then he stared at the flag clinging to the beast's head as it pulled away from the rocks at last, and at the blood that dripped from its jaw, its own strength having been sufficient to break the tough skin where Jane's could not. 

Odin's brow wrinkled as he considered the new circumstances, and Huginn spoke to him of the murmurings of the crowd and Muninn of what the young mortal had managed to do. It was clear what he must say. He cracked Gungnir against the stones again to silence the conversation that had sprung up irrepressibly in the interval of his silence. 

"And so the human race continues to surprise us," he said to the eagerly waiting arena. "Jane Foster has completed her final challenge. Therefore, in light of the laws set forth long before my rule, I now judge her courageous, quick-witted, and worthy to stand among the gods and goddesses of Asgard." 

A fresh cheer went up, along with some muttering, but that was to be expected. Thor dropped down into the arena, going to Jane and embracing her, and as the guards corralled the beast back to its enclosure, Thor handed his beloved Jane the long-awaited golden apple. 

She contemplated it for a moment, then bit into it, chewing thoughtfully, and then with a small amount of perturbation when the flavor fully revealed itself. But she finished it without comment. 

"I knew you were brave," he said, leading her out of the arena. "I am glad the Allfather has seen it. This is glad news. But Steven has contacted me with news more grave. Daire is ill, and needs them. Reginunn's family is still in danger. I wish we could celebrate at more length, but I must go. The alliance depends on our protection of their lands." 

"Yeah, that's some crap timing," Jane said, frowning. "I'm not happy, but I get it. I've had to bail on you because of my work enough times. Say hi for me, give the dragon babies kisses. Should I head back to Earth?" 

"If you wish, but the others are gathering in Helheim. You are now part of the royal family of Asgard," Thor told her earnestly, "and therefore you may command Heimdall to send you anywhere you wish among the Nine." 

"Great, another new scary thing to do today," she said, resigned. But then she squeezed Thor's arm and gave him a smile. "All right, go on, get to Reggie's place. If I can handle a rampaging bilgesnipe, I can sure as hell get to Niflheim without an escort." 

Thor nodded. I know you can. Do not forget to dress warmly, if you go there without a mage. The cold is bitter." 

"Gotcha," she said, kissing him quickly. "Now go!" 

Thor stepped away from her reluctantly, swung Mjolnir into a spin, and vanished into the sky. 

Jane sighed after him, then went on to where the king and queen stood waiting for her, Odin with congratulations and Frigga with a gleeful embrace. Jane told Frigga what she needed, and quicker than she would have thought possible, she was arrayed in furs and sent off down to the Bifrost. She met Sif and Steve on the way there, thankfully, so they dealt with the still-slightly-scary gatekeeper, while Jane just followed, burrowing into the furs and breathing her relief. 

Loki was waiting for the three just outside the gates with a spell to shield them from the cold, so that was nice. The rest were clustered nearby. 

"Those apples taste really weird," Jane was saying conversationally as they stepped through the gate. 

"They taste as they always have," Sif answered, but her eyes were scanning the group within the walls for her children. 

"You passed your trial?" Josh asked Jane. 

"I almost didn't," Jane said, wide-eyed, still full of excitement and adrenaline and worry. "They didn't want me to show fear. Well, I'm sorry, but I'm only human. I may have screamed a little bit. Or a lot." 

"And yet somehow you met with the Allfather's approval?" Loki narrowed skeptical eyes at her. 

"Yeah, well, I did the thing they asked me to do, didn't I? He didn't really give me a chance before he started his speech about how unworthy I was, but I tagged the thing. Big, maybe. Not that intelligent." 

Loki managed to look impressed. 

Sif had her family in her sights, and she was much relieved. 

Abraham was in the arms of Hel, seeming content enough to watch her and the people around them and the fireflies she'd summoned for his entertainment. It was strange to see Hel in what Sif knew was her true form, a slim ten-year-old, carrying Sif's son as if he weighed nothing, even though she knew it was not muscle that supported him here, but magic. She turned her attention to Daire. 

Daire still clung to Bruce, but when she saw Steve, she reached for him, and he came straight to her and wrapped an arm around her, enveloping both her and Bruce in a huge hug. 

"Mama," said Daire. "I couldn't breathe. It was scary." 

"I know, honey," said Steve. "I know." 

"It looked like asthma," Bruce said. "Of course, I can't be sure, since it's only happened once, as far as I know. Has she had trouble breathing before?" 

"She gets coughs," Steve said worriedly. "But nothing like this, no." 

"What can be done?" Sif asked Loki. "Can you heal her?" 

"Unfortunately," the sorcerer replied, "I do not believe so." 

"Why not?" 

"For very similar reasons to the reasons I could never heal Hel," he answered, glancing at his daughter. "This disease is tied too tightly to the immune system, which is resistant to permanent change. Any spell I put in place would eventually unravel. And if Darcy attempted anything, her spell would likely snap back all at once, having no subtlety. The healing spells of hers which are permanent all involve snapping back to a more natural state. It is her gift, and it is powerful, but it is limited." 

Sif frowned. "Then what would you suggest?" 

"Either she would have to make do with the human medicines that are available on Earth... or she could eat her first apple now." 

"Is that wise? They are never given to children. There must be a reason." 

"It may slow her growth. There is no way to know. It has not been done in recorded memory." 

Tony chimed in here. "But what do you do when something like this happens?" 

"It doesn't," Loki answered. "Asgard has the apples, and the healing stones, which are for wounds, and in some ways act much as Darcy does, and a branch of medicine for treating magically-induced illnesses. But human ailments? They simply do not happen." 

"And is that the apples?" Steve asked. "Would they stop this?" 

"It may very well be the apples. Tony is not only no longer aging, but he also has noticed a significant improvement in his instances of allergies, muscle soreness and other human diseases with a significant inflammatory component." 

Tony noticed, for the second time, that Helheim was the only place his boyfriend would speak openly about that stolen apple. Everyone knew, but outside of Helheim Keep, no one spoke of it. 

"That makes sense," Bruce replied to Josh. "The controls imposed on the rate of growth, division and healing aren't like what's present in the Serum transformation, but they're there. And before anyone asks about the Serum?" He shot a significant look at Tony, because he was the one Bruce was most worried about actually considering it. "Probably more traumatic than what Daire's already gone through, and more dangerous, even with everything we've learned about it since my misadventure with it. I'd be inclined to suggest human medicine, because that's what I'm comfortable with, but I'm guessing the apples are even more tried and tested, at least on adults?" 

Daire leaned against Bruce's chest, Steve's hand on her back and the flow of words calming her slowly but surely, and soon she was looking around curiously, squirming slightly. Bruce handed her off fully to Steve, who hugged her and set her down so she could take a closer look at the illusions Hel was using to entertain her brother. 

"Eating the apple has occasionally had side effects," said Loki, "but only for those with no magic available to them, no source of dimensional energy. Daire has less magic than Sif, but she has more than enough. No harm will come to her." 

Jane shot Loki a look. "No one ever warned me about that," she said. 

"You are quite capable of cobbling together a device that would compensate for the lack, as Tony has, but you will likely not need to. Even in humans, the danger is low. But there is a reason that a test of courage is required to obtain one." 

"I don't know, it seems drastic," Steve said. "But sometimes I was sure my body was out to kill me, and I don't want that to be her life." 

"The medicine now is much better than it was," Bruce told them. "But it's still scary and uncomfortable, not something you want a little kid to go through if there's an alternative. 

"If she does eat the apple, she'll be small," Steve said, "but she'll be _healthy._ Heck, she and her aunt Hel can commiserate about that." 

Sif raised her eyebrows at them. "Maybe we should ask her." 

* * *

Hel, in her true ten-year-old skin, sat and spoke with Daire. She explained what she could of the options, and what might happen. 

"But if you decide to eat the apple, you can never take that back, and you may often wish to. There are many things that a child's body cannot do." 

"Is it annoying being always small?" the four-year-old asked. 

"It is," the taller girl answered. "And I have been able to control how people see me, for the most part. You will not." 

"But Anghamarr will be able to carry me for longer," Daire said. "And the scary thing won't happen again." 

"No, you won't be ill anymore," Hel agreed. 

"Good," Daire answered. "That was too scary. I don't want it to happen anymore. Being small is okay." 

"Then go and tell your parents what you have decided," the queen of Niflheim told the girl. 

Daire hopped up, and ran to Steve. "Mama," she said, grabbing his hand, "I want to eat the apple." 

"That's a reasonable decision," Steve answered. "I know asthma is scary." 

Daire nodded, businesslike. 

"Well, that settles that," said Tony. "Let's go get it done." 

Joshua shook his head. "It's not always that simple... not if you wish to maintain your standing in Asgard." He gave Sif a look full of significance. 

"What do you mean, she's Asgardian, right? Sif's kid, free and clear?" Tony asked, confused annoyance on his face. 

"Even Aesir children must go through a trial - more of a ritual - before becoming full citizens," Sif answered. "I had wondered how you planned to circumvent that." 

"Oh, very little trickery will be required," Loki said. "All we need do is show the people of Asgard that Daire will do without fear what few of Asgard's stoutest hearts would face without quailing." 

All eyes turned to the blue man. Daire squinted at her uncle Josh. "Will I?" she asked him. 

"You will indeed, Daire Rogers," he answered, the warmth of Joshua and the mischief of Loki both dancing in his eyes. "You will indeed."


	4. Chapter 4

Black Widow glanced into the room, and for a moment she thought that she'd stepped back in time, or that the similarity of the place to other Red Room facilities was giving her flashbacks. 

There was a slim, graceful child, deep auburn hair flying and fine-boned face set in impassivity, running drills, the same motions over and over. She was six or seven, probably seven if she was as similar to Natasha as she seemed. Small and deadly even then. 

This was one of the few things that could have made Widow pause in her task, peering through the window intently, unable to look away. It of course occurred to her that that was what they'd planned, the Red Room, leaving the girl where their runaway Black Widow might come across her. But it was too perfect, even for one of the Red Room's ops, to be wholly a lie. The way she moved, Natasha could feel it in her limbs. 

Then the child made a misstep and her face blossomed with anger and frustration and defiance. 

Natasha felt something deep in her chest when she saw that; this child wasn't her, not quite. They'd broken her of that kind of emotional response before she was five. This child, she still had part of her spirit. 

Black Widow decided she was going to throw the mission. 

"Sitwell," she said to the man in her ear. "I'm going off script." 

"This is our best chance to reach our objective," he said. "If you stick to the plan." 

"Screw the objective," she said calmly but decisively. "What I just found is more important." 

"This was your mission, Widow," Sitwell said, annoyed. "You pitched it hard. Now you don't want to get it done? Great. Fine." Sitwell took a breath. "Okay. What did you find?" 

"A second chance," was all she said before opening the door. 

* * *

Thor stood before the people of Asgard, administering today's challenge in his father's place, since he knew best what was to come and his reassurances would be more convincing. His voice rang out across the huge open space. 

"Please be assured that this is merely a demonstration," he said, "and I would remind you of the rules that a challenge for citizenship may not be interrupted." 

There was muttering from the crowd, probably much like Fandral, who, standing beside Thor, said impatently, "Yes, yes, we're all familiar with the GAAH! DRAGON! THAT IS A DRAGON!" 

"Leave him be! He is a part of Daire's challenge, and no more." Thor spoke to Fandral, placing himself in front of his friend, but the spell still carried his voice through the whole place. 

There was muttering, and a few yells, but no one moved to interfere. Then Daire entered the arena, taking quick but short strides on her little legs, wearing the garb, not of a human or of an Asgardian child, but of an asgardian warrior, armor and all. She looked like a miniature version of her father. 

Anghamarr stretched out his long, shimmering purple neck towards her, bringing his nose into her path, and the crowd gasped. Daire didn't hesitate, but marched up to the huge snout, and patted it with one small hand. 

Anghamarr's eyes crinkled, and Daire smiled back, and walked past his head and neck to his shoulderblades, where her regular harness was strapped into place. She climbed up and tightened the catches herself, which her parents or uncles usually did, but was not actually much challenge to her half-Aesir strength. When she was done, she gave Anghamarr's shoulder a tap, and he launched into the air. Daire grinned. 

The Aesir watched, disbelieving. Anghamarr was a known fighting dragon, and had fought, injured and killed many Aesir in his lifetime, and stories were told of that scarred snout, and the wide curve of purple wings which shaded to deep red at the clawed tips. Seeing him flying over Asgard's capital was a spectacle in itself. It was unbelievable that the child had such sway over him. 

Anghamarr flew up, showing his full length and wingspan to the gathered Aesir, hovered for a moment high over the arena, and then looped down and around, gliding over the crowd. Daire laughed delightedly, and waved when they passed those she knew, the king and queen, Volstagg and Hildy and their children, her parents and honorary uncles and aunt, her horseback riding teacher (who was blinking up at the illustration of how his lessons were being put to use) and other acquaintances. 

They wouldn't take a long ride, as this was for illustration purposes, and the longer Anghamarr flew above the capital, the greater risk he took. So he set down in the middle of the arena again, so the girl could dismount. 

They faced each other again, and Daire saluted him in the Aesir way, and said, "Thank you, Anghamarr." 

The purple dragon bowed his head and tipped his wings in return. "Always a pleasure, Lady Daire," he answered. And the dragon turned and disappeared back through the gate where he had entered. 

The crowd's voices rose like a wave, exclaiming and challenging and debating and generally expressing their shock and confusion. Thor called for silence, and the people turned to listen. 

"I assure you that what you have just witnessed was in no way counterfeit. Daire has faced the dragon Anghamarr without fear. She has proven herself, and on behalf of the throne of Asgard, I now declare her, Daire Sifdottir, a full citizen of Asgard, with all the rights and priveleges thereof." 

The Avengers present began the cheer, and it rippled through the crowd, healthy, if not overwhelming. 

Sif was the one who went down to greet her daughter, and she lifted the tiny armored girl up, over her head, so she could properly receive the applause. Then Daire was set down, and, hand in hand with her father, left the arena. 

Steve met them past the doors, and swept Daire up and peppered her with kisses, and made sure that she wasn't too overwhelmed by the attention. But Daire seemed to bask in it, thrilled and chattering away about everything she'd seen, about how different the capital was from the dragon-wilds when seen from above (she used the word "sparkly" several times) and how the crowd had cheered. 

Bruce had cut the apple for Daire, little manageable chunks but with the skin-side up to show the gold glimmer they shone with. 

"Even my snacks are sparkly today!" Daire declared, and took a piece, doing a little wriggly dance before she ate it. 

Steve took a moment to appreciate that even if his daughter stayed as small as she was now for years to come, she would not stay this delightfully playful and guileless. He hugged her tight. 

Daire stuck her tongue out in consternation, but didn't spit. "Skin tastes like pennies," she said. 

"I know, honey. You gotta eat the whole thing, though." 

And Daire did, determinedly, make her way through the whole apple before they all adjourned to the Bifrost, and said their private congratulations and farewells. Sif was to join Hogun in defending the dragons again, Jane and Thor would remain in the capital to help deal with the political fallout of Anghamarr's appearance and to serve as Sif's backup if it were needed, and the rest would return to Earth and to Stark Tower. 

* * *

Black Widow never checked in with Sitwell again that mission. 

Everything was for the benefit of the girl, Beatrix, she called herself, and getting her out of this place. Bea leapt at the opportunity to escape her training, to go with someone who clearly knew the business but didn't point out Bea's every shortcoming. 

Natasha had very little trouble convincing her to come. 

Bea didn't trust her, of course. Bea didn't trust anyone. But Bea pretended to trust her long enough to get to New York. Nat didn't mention SHIELD, dodged any agents that might be trying to get information on what she was doing. Nat brought Bea as far as Stark Tower, gave Jarvis a hand signal to be silent when she passed the first of his cameras, took the girl straight to her floor, and then told Beatrix that they were safe, and the next move was up to her. 

Bea had never had such a wide open choice in her short life. 

"Is this a trick?" the girl said. "What do you want me for? Stop messing around and tell me so I can get it done." 

Natasha just shook her head, offered Bea the shower first and three choices of clothing, combinations of her own clothes and things she'd picked up along the way. Bea didn't choose but went straight for the shower, because it was easy, because it could be taken like an order. Natasha knew exactly where her head was right now, and she hated it. 

She hoped there was still a chance for Bea to unlearn those habits more easily than she had. 

* * *

Clint was hanging out on Bruce's, now his and Bruce's floor, just sitting flipping through the channels on the TV. Jarvis hadn't given him a heads-up that Natasha was approaching, that she was in the building; he hadn't even known she was back in the States. But there she was, coming around the corner by the door, face both warning and bizarrely hesitant. 

"Nat, what...?" 

And then there was another pair of eyes on him, peering around Natasha's hip, and the mess of deep red hair, the tiny cold-eyed face, made the bottom fall out of his world. 

He turned off the TV and leaned towards them, eyes on the smaller face, but looking out for Tasha's state as well. 

"Hey, darling," the archer greeted Beatrix. 

"I'm not a kid," Bea said, expression mild but tone allowing for no objections. "So you don't have to talk to me like one." 

"I can see that," Clint answered agreeably enough. "Neither is Nat there, is she, and she's still my darling deadly girl. Aren't you, Natasha?" 

Natasha snorted. Beatrix smiled, tiny and crooked. 

"You found the Red Room," Clint stated. 

Natasha nodded, small and tight. 

"But that is not the teacher of yours you went in to find." 

"No, she's not. Her name is Beatrix. Tell me you see it too." 

"They cloned you." 

There was a moment of silence while they all took in the implications of this. Nat and Bea looked at each other appraisingly, having heard from a third party what they'd increasingly suspected over the last few days. 

"Or as good as," Nat said finally. "I figured Bruce could run some tests; I know he understands the need for discretion with biological samples." 

Clint smiled in a way that was a little off. "He's not home right now. Daire was here for a visit with us, but she had an asthma attack and all the genius-level Avengers went to Helheim for a science-magic powwow. Just me right now." 

"All the better, for now." Natasha sat down next to him on the sofa. She didn't inquire about Daire. She was in the best hands, and concern about her was for later. "Clint. I don't know what to do with her." 

"That's a lie," Beatrix said. "You brought me here. You must want me for something." 

"Yes," answered Natasha. "I want redemption for myself. But I don't know how to get it." 

* * *

They eventually made the call to tell her about Jarvis, introduce him and make it known that if she went for any weapons or ran, he would inform them. Beatrix didn't seem inclined to test that, happy enough to be in a place where she didn't have to run drills or simulations. Natasha made sure to avoid all the signal behaviors she knew so well, very intentionally lounging and relaxing her vigilance as she only could in the Tower, and then only on certain floors. Beatrix watched her carefully, trying to follow her lead. 

Natasha and Clint slept in shifts, a habit ingrained in them while on mission, and in some ways this very much felt like a mission. Clint slept first, suspecting that while he did, Beatrix would test the boundaries and Natasha would shut her down; he knew he'd be safe. 

He kept the second watch, and by this time Beatrix was exhausted; she and Natasha ended up sleeping propped up, back-to-back, on one side of the sofa. It looked very strange and yet totally natural; it was unheard of for Natasha to sleep in such close proximity to anyone who she had known for less than a week. 

But Beatrix in her rumpled blue tunic and black leggings, and Natasha in a black v-neck and tan yoga pants, sat slumped against each other, auburn hair blending indistinguishably, as unguarded as they ever were, as if they knew each other inside and out, which, he supposed, in a way, they did. 

Clint's gut twisted with worry, tension and something like envy, wondering what was going to happen to their family. 

There was a soft click as the apartment door opened, Bruce stepping as softly as he could and stopping in the living room doorway, looking over the scene with perceptive calm. 

Clint grinned hugely at him, lifted himself off the couch and crossed the room as silently as a trained sniper and spy could. Once in the doorway, he wrapped his arms around his boyfriend, smiling the warm welcome that Bruce associated with home. "It's good to see you," he murmured in the scientist's ear. "Daire doing okay?" 

"Yeah, and it's some story," Bruce said, returning the smile and the embrace, breathing in the familiar scent of Clint. "But it looks like you've got one of your own." 

"Yeah, well, it's mostly Nat's, but the gist of it? She was out looking for some old contacts back in Russia, and she found something she didn't know they'd taken from her." 

"Clone?" Bruce asked. 

"That's what we're thinkin'," Clint answered, voice shading back into the serious. "You're the only one Nat'd trust to do the tests." 

"You think she would?" Bruce asked. 

"Yeah, she knows you're solid," Clint answered, kissing Bruce lightly. "I'd be more worried about Beatrix there. She's paranoid, of course, and she's no slouch at defending herself. I haven't seen it in person," Clint added as Bruce shot him a concerned glance. "But I can see it when she moves, and she and Nat had to fight their way out of the place they were keeping her. And the way Nat tells it, kid could've gotten out alone if she'd made up her mind to leave." 

Bruce breathed into Clint's hair for a minute, then shot another glance at the two redheads on the sofa. "What's the plan? She'll need help, therapy, stability, normalcy. As much as any of that's possible." 

"We're just focusing on trying to get her not to bolt," Clint answered. "And I don't think Nat's sure of anything right now. But I'm gonna do what I can." 

Bruce nodded. "Good," he said. "Right behind you on that." He sighed. "Daire... well, we came up with a unique solution to her problem. We don't think she'll have any more attacks, but we'll keep an inhaler around anyway." 

Clint frowned at the worry that was still on his boyfriend's face. "How unique?" 

"She might stay little for a while longer," the scientist answered. 

"What, like a few years?" 

"Like a few decades," Bruce answered. "Or she might age relatively normally. We're really not sure." 

Clint squinted thoughtfully. "That... is a long time to stay three feet tall." 

"Daire seemed to get that, though. She's really inclined to see the bright side." 

"Yeah, she's a regular ray of sunshine," agreed Clint. "She back here? What's the count in the Tower?" 

"Tony, Josh and Steve are here, and both his kids," Bruce answered. "Sif, Jane and Thor stayed on Asgard. The dragon issue is coming to a head, and we'd like to do something about it sooner rather than later. Steve suggested a brainstorming session over breakfast, but if you need to be here with Beatrix...." 

Then Clint felt an eye on him from the couch. He glanced over, and Beatrix blinked back at them. She tensed up as she saw the unfamiliar face, and Nat woke then, turning to the doorway, quick as blinking. She saw the two of them entwined, and relaxed again. "He's okay," Natasha told Bea. Bruce felt warmed that she'd say that. 

"Whattya think, Nat?" Clint raised his voice to be audible across he room. "You two up for team breakfast?" 

Natasha looked at Bea, and for a moment her eyes were sharp and cold. "You've got options," she told the girl, "but hurting the team is not one of them. I'll be watching you; so will Jarvis. Understand?" 

Bea thought it through, then nodded. "Priority principals? How many?" 

Natasha reached for her phone and used it to prompt Jarvis to bring images up on the TV. "J, table count for this morning, photos and publicly known powers." They started with Abie and Daire, Nat making it clear that the two of them were top tier, most important to protect. 

Bruce watched them talk about the close-knit family that lived here in the cold violence-drenched terms that were ingrained into their ways of thinking, and anger roiled in his core and tingled in his hands, but not anger at them. Never at them. Only at the people who would use them the way they had been trained to be used, without thought to the fact that they were people. A helpless position he could relate to all too well. 

Then Clint squeezed him tighter, regaining his attention. "So, breakfast here?" the archer asked. "Kinda craving spicy sausage and hash browns. Think you can work that in somewhere?" 

Bruce smiled, and let Clint drag him off to their kitchen, where he set his boyfriend to work washing and cutting potatoes, onions and peppers while Bruce started prepping the sausage and eggs. 

It was going to be an interesting day.


	5. Chapter 5

Bruce tried to focus on the meal, on Clint beside him, but he couldn't help keeping an ear out for what might be going on in the other room. When Avengers began to trickle in, he listened to the introductions, first Cap, Daire, then Tony, and then Josh and Abie, who was in the blue man's arms. 

"You're a liar," Beatrix remarked then, and Bruce couldn't stop himself from poking his head around the corner to see what was happening. Bea's eyes were narrowed slightly as she looked at Loki, but she wasn't visibly tense. "Joshua's not who you are." 

"And what will you do about it?" Loki asked her, denying nothing. 

"I've been told Abraham takes priority over you," she answered, gesturing to the brown-haired boy in Loki's arms who was staring at her curiously. "If you prove yourself a danger to him, I'll kill you." 

"Good," said Josh, giving her a smile both warm and calculating. 

"But don't take that as a go-ahead or anything, Kiddo," Tony said to her, wrapping arms around Josh from behind. "I'm kinda attached to both of 'em." His words, smirk and unworried expression as he said them really didn't sit well with Bea. 

"That epithet?" she said, looking at him witheringly. "You clearly don't take me seriously enough." 

Tony just looked back, somehow shrugging with just his face. "And _you_ clearly have not seen Kill Bill," he replied. 

Beatrix just shook her head, eyes skeptical. 

"Of course not, seeing special effects enhanced stage fighting would interfere with training," Natasha said. Then she looked to Bea with the quirk of a smile. "But trust me, it's appropriate. Stark doesn't miss much." 

Beatrix looked thoughtful. "So he must not care as much as he says he does whether I kill the man calling himself Joshua." 

"No, that's not it," Natasha corrected her. "Tony trusts his boyfriend to take care of himself." 

Bea nodded acknowledgement of the warning, and the truth that was present in the label, if not in the name. He was one of the principals, then, and not an impostor. They knew him for what he was, they just weren't telling her about it. 

She still watched the man closely, a threat Natasha respected with the most helpless of the principals in his arms. 

Bruce started bringing out the food then, calling people to the table, and they came, Steve saying how good it smelled and Daire exclaiming over the presence of cherries and Natasha making sure to thank both Bruce and Clint for their work, but then smacking Clint affectionately and calling him whipped. 

"So, down to business, what's the plan looking like so far?" Tony said, sliding into a seat and looking at the food hungrily. "Oh wow, Bruce, if all the meetings I had to go to came with food this good, I'd show up a lot more of the time." 

"Transporting Anghamarr to the city today went very smoothly," Loki said. "The path was a good one. However, if I am to teleport the children and a seed hoard, I will not have the energy left to keep three adult dragons invisible for the last leg, to the Bifrost." 

"Darcy can teleport too, right?" Steve asked him. 

"Not as reliably as I, nor with as much mass, nor can she manage convincing invisibility," Loki said with resignation. "As much as she has improved, I would not entrust her with either task." 

"You could take all six of them the way you took Anghamarr," Bruce suggested. 

"Some of the realms we traveled through on our way would hardly be safer for the young dragons than the outskirts of the Aesir homelands," Josh said, shaking his head. "The beasts that inhabit the deep woods of Nidaveillr will gladly prey on young dragons. Full-grown and battle-scarred serpents at least give them pause." 

"What is 'dragon' code for?" Beatrix asked. 

"Nothing," Clint answered. "Believe it or not, just what it sounds like. Great big flying lizards that can talk. Not that I've seen 'em myself. Just the pictures." 

"Have you seen them?" Beatrix asked Natasha. 

"Not in person, no," the Black Widow answered. "But I trust the word of my team." 

"You claim to have seen?" Bea asked the rest of the room. 

"Yup," said Tony. "What, a couple hours ago? Hell of a sight." 

Bruce only nodded agreement. 

"I've been spending a lot of time with the friends we're talking about," Steve said. 

"And you?" Beatrix asked Loki, acknowledging, if not his honesty, at least his lack of gullibility. 

"I have seen dragons. I have spoken to dragons. I have fought dragons. I have killed dragons." His voice had a curious flatness to it, but it didn't quite sound like a lie. 

She shook her head. "What have they been fed?" she asked Natasha. 

"Hey," said Clint, "yeah, it's a little weird to hear about at first, but the universe has been getting bigger every day, right? Why not dragons?" 

"Don't do that! Don't try to confuse me. It won't work. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS DRAGONS!" 

"Please don't yell in my house," Bruce said, cool as you please, but there was power in his voice and Beatrix barely avoided flinching. 

"There are so dragons," Daire responded, approaching Bea, and Beatrix blinked at the girl a head shorter even than her. Daire continued, unperturbed by Bea's darting, lashing glances at the faces around her. "Some of them are my friends." 

Bea scoffed. "Imaginary friends. You're a kid, not a soldier. Nothing you say is worth listening to." 

Daire glared back at the taller girl. "I am a warrior of Asgard," she said, echoing her father's tone perfectly. "Do not insult my friends." 

Bea looked her over, evaluating her stance. "That's not a real thing. You've had no training. You're just a kid, playing games." 

The blue-skinned man handed Abie off to Tony and came to stand behind Daire, standing at his full height but not as if it was protective - rather as if Daire were a warleader and he her soldier. And Loki knew how to stand. "Daire is the equal of any Asgardian warrior. She faced her trials. She's earned her apple." 

"And _now,_ " the sweet round-faced girl with golden-brown curls said, glaring at Beatrix defiantly, "I'm not afraid of ANYTHING." 

Bea looked up into Loki's red eyes. "The way you indulge her is sickening." A rote phrase; she'd heard it before, but didn't quite know what it was supposed to mean. 

"I don't lie," Loki said simply. "Not about this." 

It didn't make sense. 

"What crazy impossible place did you bring me to?!" Bea swung around, glaring at Natasha. "What kind of test is this, what are the parameters, what do you want _now?_ Tell me!" 

Natasha could only look at her with concern, because she knew of no acceptable answer, no proof of what it had taken her so long to learn, that sometimes there was no mission, no trick, no order in life. 

Bruce had moved out of his chair, closer to Bea, and that just made her angrier, because like Daire, he clearly had little or no combat training, but he moved with utter confidence, his eyes saying that he was the shield, that she would not get through him to hurt the others. 

But it made _no sense._

"Which is the lie, your body or your eyes?" she asked, turning on him and snarling. 

"Body," he answered calmly. "You read about us." He gestured at himself. 

Bea shook her head. Yes, Natasha had told her about the Hulk with a straight face, and she'd reserved her judgement on whether it was misinformation. But this was too much to believe. 

"Who doesn't know about the Hulk?" Tony asked with slightly widened eyes. "Brucey, I clearly haven't been bugging the PR people enough. My science bro needs a spotlight." 

"Black Widows, they keep in isolation," Natasha said with a sort of distant thoughtfulness. "We... dont believe or disbelieve anything until we see it, and we're given only the information we need for the next mission." She looked at Bea. "But somebody caught you with fairy tales, and they made a mistake. They came down on you for believing in them. They should have treated it like any other intel. Instead, they gave you the gift of doubt." 

"They're full of things that don't make sense. They're _silly,_ " Bea spat, eyes still on Bruce. 

"Like the world outside the Red Room," Natasha answered. "Clint... he was too ridiculous to be real. It was what got me to stop, and listen to him. He was something I didn't understand." She gave the archer a subtly fond look. 

"How do you explain what doesn't make _sense? Why_ did you _bring_ me here?" 

"Not being sure about things is okay," Bruce told her, inching closer. "When you're around people you trust." 

" _No,_ it's _not_ okay," she said, and lunged for Bruce. 

The whole room moved, Josh caught up Daire and moved back, Tony joining him, eyes hardening and arms tightening around Abie. Natasha and Steve moved between her and the other children, and Clint stayed where he was, watching, but his hand moved to a concealed weapon. 

It was the consistency of that reaction that convinced her that they were most likely what they said they were, and when she barrelled into Bruce all her conviction and intention was gone, and she was all confusion and frustration and anger. Bruce made a little "oof" noise, but didn't otherwise react to the attack, instead placing gentle hands on her head and shoulder, and she kept hitting him but not with strikes meant to injure. But strikes were the only thing she knew. 

"Bea," he said, "I'd like you to stop." 

Her face twisted with confusion and pain, but her small fists at last came to a halt, and soon after she found herself caught up in warm, protective arms, one hand rubbing up and down her back. 

She continued her token struggle, because what was she if she didn't fight, but no one here was like that, not even Natasha. The older Black Widow trusted these people, trusted Bruce; Daire sat proud and unflinching in Loki's arms, not ashamed to be protected; no one here was only as valued as their capacity for violence. So Beatrix's thrashes relaxed into sobs, and she clung to Bruce's shirt, shaking. 

The warm arms tightened around her slightly, and the motion against her back continued, and she turned herself inside out with crying. 

Gradually everyone returned to their places at the table, Tony handing off a worried and whimpery Abie to Steve and returning to his plate, Natasha continuing her meal as if nothing of note had happened, and Bruce finding his place again and setting her in his lap, although for the moment he ignored his food, just sitting and holding her. 

Bea lifted her face after a while and found herself looking at Clint, sitting beside Bruce and watching him - not her, but him - watchful and fascinated. There was something warm in that look that embodied the whole strangeness of this place. 

She decided there was nothing more she could do to fight that strangeness. And for the first time in a long time, Beatrix of the Black Widow program truly relaxed. 

* * *

Eventually everyone settled and conversation resumed, and Beatrix decided that since Daire had remained on Joshua's lap to eat, it wouldn't be a terrible offense to the customs of these people if she remained where she was, as well. Bruce didn't seem to mind. Clint passed her a plate with a little of everything on it, and she ate carefully, not wanting to disturb Bruce or get in the way of these people now that she'd decided to study them more. 

"We've got other ways of making things invisible," Tony was saying. "Retroreflective vehicles, something like that work?" 

"The paths between worlds are barely wide enough to allow an adult dragon on its own," Joshua said, shaking his head. "I am forced to reconsider Darcy for that leg of the journey. Her illusions are not perfect, but they may prove adequate, and her nonlethal combat skills are better than mine, if it comes down to that." 

"Hey, hey, brainwave," Tony said, talking over the end of Josh's sentence. "We could put the kiddies in a plane, then all go together. Plane'll keep them safe, you can hide the big lizards, Darcy can just be backup." 

Loki looked at his lover with grudging approval. "That is... an interesting option. And if something were to go wrong before the last run for the Bifrost, I could still teleport them. But how long will it take to acquire such a vehicle and transport it there?" 

"If you could give me the dimensions we need to stay within, I'll know what we've got to work with. I might have something lying around that could work...." 

They continued refining the plans, and Tony left the table early, muttering about dimensions and lift capacity, and with a hastily constructed wrap that had been made by Steve and shoved into his hands by Josh, because otherwise Tony was unlikely to eat during what promised to be a long bout of engineering. 

The others discussed the lineup, Tony, Josh and Darcy obviously, and perhaps Sif, as a competent warrior and well-respected citizen of Asgard (she also got along well with Heimdall; he'd been indispensable in her training and had come to think of her as family). 

Bruce, Clint, Natasha and Steve and his kids would be staying here, and someone named Peter would be returning to the tower later that day in company with the Darcy they'd mentioned. At Bea's curious look, Clint brought up the profiles for the rest of the household on his phone, as well as the six dragons that were soon to join the team, but live on a separate nearby piece of property. 

"Shield's cleared the three adult dragons for asset status, and all six as residents," Natasha was saying. "But we still have the public to deal with. Photographs and stories are one thing, but what happens when they actually see giant lizards flying over their city?" 

"We just hope like heck that nobody panics," Clint said. "And we keep an eye out. Costumed Avenger escort at all times. If they're flying, Tony or Thor. Cap, you, Sif and the kids want to relocate to the mansion while they're settling in? They might appreciate a familiar face." 

"It's a good plan," Steve answered. "Is the place ready?" 

"It is indeed," Jarvis answered. "I have been installed, and initial modifications for dragon occupancy have been completed. Mister Stark wished to do more, but reason prevailed in this instance. The hangar has been reinforced and updated for the dragons, and the mansion itself has been made ready to serve as a backup residence for the more humanoid Avengers. However, it contains only two kitchens, one in the public area and a second in the Barton-Banner apartment. Your family's private living area is on the fourth floor, and consists of only four adjoining rooms and one bath." 

"That's plenty," Steve said, thinking first of the tiny apartment he'd lived in growing up, and then of the barracks and camps he'd been used to for the rest of his twentieth-century life. Having three homes, all with the richness of either Aesir nobility or Stark wealth, was honestly kind of overwhelming. 

"We're gonna have a house with Javvie _and_ dragons?" Daire asked excitedly. "Can we stay there all the time, Mama?" Her face dimpled as she considered this prospect. 

"No, sweetie," Steve answered. "Daddy still has to be on Asgard sometimes. And your horse is still there, and Volstagg and Hildy's kids. You wouldn't want to stop seeing them, right?" 

"No," answered Daire, slightly quashed but still content to play with the cherry halves on her plate. 

"Why did you call him 'Mama'?" Beatrix asked Daire. "He's clearly a man." 

Daire put on her informative-face; she'd been asked this question before. "Abie and me have a special family. We have a man-mama and a lady-daddy." 

"But why?" the other child asked. "They look like regular people." There had been a picture of Sif in the second round of profiles. 

"Because Asgard," she said, and rolled her eyes. 

Steve explained further. "Because Sif has an image to maintain on her world, and being a mother isn't really compatible with that," he said. 

Bea put that away with all the other things she didn't understand about this place, for later examination. She needed more information, and getting it wasn't going to be simple. It wasn't going to be fast. 

She decided this was an exercise in patience and observation, and settled in to wait and watch.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After having a lot of thoughts about Howard Stark and whether he would have built his own mansion and what kind of large vehicle outbuilding he would have had, I have changed the carriage house originally mentioned in the previous chapter into a small aircraft hangar.

"She's you," Bruce said, "for all intents and purposes. You'd test as the same person under the more rudimentary DNA screenings. But either they've done a little tweaking or they weren't working from an intact sample. There are variations. Mitochondrial DNA leads me to believe it's more likely the former." 

Natasha nodded. She'd all but known. Another experiment. 

"Is that important?" Beatrix asked. "What does it mean?" 

"Since you have the same mitochondrial DNA and a high percentage of identical chromosomes, but not all, and there's no Y chromosome that specifically needs to match, most people doing the testing without the context I have would conclude that you are mother and daughter." 

Nat didn't visibly react; Clint knew her well enough to see her very carefully not reacting. Bea turned slightly narrowed eyes on all three of the adults, ending with Natasha. 

"That gives you power over me," she said. 

Natasha, externally calm, turned to look at her. "I know," she said. "And that scares me." 

Bea frowned at her. "That doesn't make sense. _You_ are the one with the power." 

"And if you had it?" Natasha asked, voice still level. "If you suddenly had power over my future, where I would live, what knowledge I would be exposed to? How would that feel?" 

Bea suddenly looked lost. "But what's the mission? What would I use it to _do?_ " 

"Exactly," said Natasha, and with careful casualness, went to sit down in a nearby chair. 

Bea's eyes were getting a little wild again. She shook her head, not understanding. Clint came to stand by her side. 

"We mostly choose our own missions here," Clint told her. "Boss only calls us when there's something he knows we'd want to help out with. Rest of the time? It's ours. He doesn't own us. He also doesn't know you're here." 

"I don't... how do you choose?" 

"Start with little missions," Clint said, remembering how it had been with Natasha at first. "You're used to regular training, right? So I bet you're itching to hit the mats. Let's spar. No permanent injuries, please, and we respect tap-outs here. Here's what you choose: hand-to-hand, or staff." 

Beatrix looked him up and down, and decided since he didn't underestimate her, she'd take the advantage in reach. "Staff," she answered. 

"Good. That's your first lesson." He led Bea out of the room, presumably towards the elevators and then the gym, giving the other two a reassuring smile on the way out. 

Bruce returned the smile, and then when they were gone, he looked at Natasha. 

She looked tired, and she looked scared. She sat more stiffly in the office chair now that Bea was gone, but as if she was more comfortable that way. Bruce took it as the honor he knew it was. 

"We'll help you, you know. In any way we can. You won't have to make any decisions on your own." 

"But I will have to make them." She barely moved as she spoke. 

"It would make things smoother, since other than her relation to you, she has no legal basis to even be in this country. But you could call SHIELD, and let them make the call," he said, hoping he knew her well enough to know she'd refuse. 

"No," Natasha said, shaking her head. "I won't do that to her. She's been at the mercy of enough spies. I needed SHIELD, I needed that crutch to lean on, but I think - I hope - she can do better without them." 

"Good," said Bruce simply, and the similarity of his tone to the way Clint had spoken the word to Bea made her look up and stare hard at him. But he wasn't mocking at all. He just wanted to do what he could to make things easier, smoother between himself and his fellow Avengers, and he'd picked up a lot from Clint about how to help her with things. 

"Thank you," she said at last. 

"No problem," he replied, smiling. "I've got to clean the rest of this up, but why don't you go down to the gym and join in the workout?" 

She gave the little sliver of a smile that meant she genuinely appreciated what he was doing, and stood. "I might just do that," she said. 

As she left, Bruce contemplated how much more he trusted himself around people than he had when he'd first met Natasha, how much more she trusted him, and how it had been a gradual matter of both of them stretching their own capacities and taking chances to get to where they were. 

It was an extraordinary gift, what they had gained, and Bruce was having a hard time believing that all this was real, that this was his life. 

But he couldn't just be satisfied; he still felt like a big piece of what he wanted was missing. And Bruce couldn't help wondering if he'd ever get to a place where that wasn't true. 

* * *

They'd gotten the tiny flying vehicle to work, retroreflectors and all (there really wasn't much wing to speak of, given their size constraints, so it was more like a giant Iron Man suit/transport pod thing), and they'd successfully flown it invisibly out over the Aesir lands and into the "wilderness" which the dragons inhabited (Thor explained that the spells guarding against trespassing at that altitude were geared specifically towards dragons, so they would only need to take the long way around once they'd taken on their passengers). 

Everything had gone well during loading - they filled the thing to capacity with humans, baby dragons and gold, which meant Tony and Darcy, the three dragon children, and about a half-ton of gold coins and small decorative items. Loki and Sif were to accompany on foot until the last stretch, where speed was key, and then Sif would mount Anghamarr and Loki would ride Hallkatla. The stronger dragons could carry full-grown humanoids for short distances, though it was very tiring. Reginunn's main pectoral muscles still hadn't recovered fully from the incident with the magic jewel, and they merely hoped he could manage the last stretch at the same speed, unencumbered. 

They ran into trouble in Nidaveillr, and some of the pod's reflective panels were damaged, but Darcy assured Loki she could compensate for that, and the pod went ahead through the dimensional path while the adult dragons, Sif and Loki stayed, making sure none of the boarlike creatures found the path and followed them through. 

Tony would deny it, but he gave a fervent prayer to any ultimate power that might be out there every time he and Loki were separated in battle. He did that now before checking the pod's systems and guiding it through the path to a craggy island on the very edge of Asgard, where only water separated them from the haven of the Bifrost. 

(Hopefully) invisibly, they flew across the water, no one coming to challenge them. They landed on the void end of the Bifrost and waited, anxiously, for the other half of their party. There would be no sign of them until they were here, if everything went well, because Loki was the only one on Asgard who could see invisible things, except perhaps Heimdall, and although the gatekeeper had seemed receptive to their plea for passage, he had promised nothing, and the humans and dragons in the pod were not going to venture out to speak to him until Sif arrived to be their intermediary, and to reassure them that nothing had gone terribly wrong. 

The minutes felt like hours as they waited, watching the sphere for signs of the larger dragons and their guardians. But at last Sif appeared, speaking to Heimdall, and once he'd set the sword in the pedestal, the dragons and Loki blinked into view, the blue-on-blue of Hallkatla with Loki on her back immensely reassuring. Loki beckoned them in, and Tony hit the controls, hovering carefully into the remaining space inside the huge sphere and deactivating the retroreflection system. 

Once they were in, Heimdall slid the sword home and the sphere began to spin, opening the portal in front of them, and they were nearly home. The tiny dragons behind them in the pod were all excitement, but Tony could see the larger dragons looking at each other and then at the portal, checking in one last time to be sure they wanted to trust the strange Aesir-built device. But Sif vaulted off Anghamarr's back and into the gate, and the rest followed, Anghamarr, Reginunn, Hallkatla with Loki still beside her, and finally the pod. 

They all landed in one of those scorched circles that was now impressed into the mansion's driveway, outside the hangar. Sif and Loki landed crouching, the large dragons flapped their wings and drifted gently down, and the pod hovered for a moment just above the driveway before making a solid landing. 

Steve and Daire were there waiting, and the doors to the hangar were open and welcoming. It was quite a large space, like a more refined version of a barn, with a gentle curve to the ceiling and a clerestory around the top of the walls letting light into the space. And there was a recessed rectangle in the floor, towards the back, where the hoard would go (and into which had been placed some fragments of trashed gold-titanium alloy armor, and some other things Tony just happened to have around). 

"Welcome home, Reggie," Steve said, gesturing to the open door of the hangar. 

The children exited the pod in a state of high excitement and curiosity, and Steve warned them not to fly too high and not to go past the wooden fence, but told them they were welcome to explore the hangar, mansion, and gardens. Daire rushed about with them, showing them the things she'd discovered earlier that day. 

The adults were slower, more solemn and awed, but they were also pleased in their own way, Reginunn making his way into the hangar and settling into the recessed floor with a pleased noise, Anghamarr climbing on top and surveying the surroundings, and Hallkatla following her children and enjoying Daire's impromptu tour. Darcy had hopped out of the vehicle behind the children, snapping photos of their enthusiastic exploration. Sif climbed her way to the hangar roof to discuss defense and lines of sight with Anghamarr. 

Tony got out of the pod slowly. He'd signed off on the renovations, of course, but he hadn't actually seen them completed; he hadn't actually been here more than a handful of times since the year his parents had died. It was different, but not so different that he could ignore the memories it brought back, good and bad. 

Loki approached him, saying nothing but wrapping a comforting arm around the inventor. 

"Daire's gonna see this place a lot differently than I did," Tony said at last. "You know her room used to be servants' quarters? Course, by the time I was around we didn't have a full staff or anything. Wasn't done anymore. Fourth floor was empty. I thought she'd like it though. Being up high. Looks out on the dragons' place." 

"I believe you are right," Loki said, smiling at the continued breathless excitement of Daire's tour as it passed by them again. 

"Gave Nat, Peter and Darcy some of the guest rooms on the third floor, still got one free for actual guests. Or, you know, new Avengers. They keep popping up." They thought of Kate, Clint's protege, who had been training with them now and again. "Thor and Jane get my old rooms, adjoining playroom, figure they can use it as a private den until they need a nursery. Put in a whole basement apartment for Bruce and Clint, Bruce likes his own kitchen and that's where there was space for another. And then we're in the master suite, of course." Tony shook his head. "Which I didn't think would still feel this weird. That's my _parents'_ space. Haven't even gone in the house and I can still taste them in the air." 

"You had very little reason to put this much thought into the reshaping of your childhood home," Josh commented, "except that, perhaps, some things that had been put away in the back of your mind are ready to be gotten out and reexamined." 

"Yeah," said Tony, frowning. "I think it's time I visited. Just needed a reason." 

Outside of the basement apartment and a functional rebuild of the bathrooms, kitchen and wiring (which was now integrated with subtle interfaces with Jarvis), not much had actually been changed. The walls were the same, the fixtures (though things like light bulbs had all been replaced with LED and other more efficient options), he'd even had a lot of the old fabrics and furniture gotten out of storage and cleaned; Pepper kept advising him not to go overboard updating the place when the Avengers already had a perfectly good tower, and his parents hadn't had bad taste. It was like walking through a memory that had only gotten sharper and brighter with time. 

He went up the stairs and peeked into his old room, which was pretty different, emptied of his childhood belongings long ago and now host to a generous (of course king-sized, for an actually gigantic alien king-in-training and his probably-future-queen) bed. 

The master suite was nearly as different, his mother's things nowhere to be found and a new bed in place here too (because anything else would have been, in Tony's mind, aggressively creepy). There weren't many ghosts here, which was a relief, but Tony also knew that he had to keep looking. 

His steps took him down to the basement, where, at the bottom of the stairs, one door led to the new apartment (on the downhill side of the house, plenty of windows and their own door to the yard), and a second door led to what remained of Howard Stark's workspace, and where everything that had still been in the hangar, the remodeled half of the basement, and the rest of the house had been stored. 

Loki knew when to keep silent, knew that even if he spoke now his lover would not hear him. He simply followed, waited, still, as good as invisible. 

Tony pushed open the door, and stepped inside. 

The workbench in front of him was a bizarre mixture of familiar and wrong; nothing had been changed except that all the half-finished projects had been cleared away, all the tools put in their places. His father had lived down here, and now it lay neat, orderly, unchanging, dead. 

It wasn't right. 

He knew that behind him stood a new wall of cabinets, all the half-finished projects and other odds and ends neatly tucked away by people who could not have understood them. Years ago. He knew that his father had been dead for more than a quarter-century. He knew that this place had sat waiting for him all this time. Like the grave he had never visited. 

He still didn't know how to talk to his father. What he would have said. There were questions he would have asked, but the opportunity for that was gone. There was no one here to answer. 

"Hadn't gotten down here yet," said a voice behind him, and it wasn't Loki's. "Couldn't face it on my own, I think." 

Tony turned to see Steve, carrying a half-asleep Abie in his arms, moving with that smooth-but-never-still stride that people who habitually carried babies somehow all learned. He nodded a greeting at Loki, who stood casually leaning against a cabinet, and Loki returned his nod. 

"Jarvis tell you what was down here?" Tony asked, not in the mood to snark at Steve for being sentimental. 

"He gave me the gist," Steve said, making his way towards the bench. "Gosh, it's so dark in here. He really spent a lot of time here? I'd picture him more in the hangar. He was always working on cars or planes. Always wanted to fly. Not hide away in a place like this." 

"Wish I'd known the guy you keep talking about," Tony said, shaking his head. "Yeah, he'd hole up here. Drink a lot. Picked up some of his bad habits, I guess. Thought it was the way brilliant inventors were supposed to work." 

"I'm sorry," said Steve. 

"You know, the worst part?" Tony turned towards Steve fully, looking at him for answers. "Everything I hated about him, it just keeps turning up in me. I ignore things, I avoid things, can't have a serious conversation that lasts more than eight seconds. This right here is pushing it. And he had better days, but then he'd slink right back down here again, for longer. What if I can't... what if that's me? What if someday I can't find my way back up? Because the more I hear from you about how he was this great cheerful happy generous guy, the more I get that that doesn't count for much. I could still end up... here." Tony gestured at the dark still room with both hands, as if trying to push it away from himself. 

"Oh, Tony." Steve came and rested a free hand on his shoulder. "No. Howard was always cocky, and brave, and brilliant, like you. But he didn't have your strength. He'd do things without thinking about the consequences because he _couldn't handle_ the consequences. I see that now, when I look back. He'd refuse to believe that he was capable of failure, even when the evidence was staring him in the face. You're stronger than that. You face up to your missteps. As hard as it is to do. You try your best to fix them. You're better than Howard." 

Tony looked at Steve with wide, disbelieving eyes. Then they narrowed in suspicion. "What's changed?" he asked. "'Cause I'm pretty certain that wasn't what you thought in the beginning." 

"A lot of things," Steve said. "You proved yourself to me a long time ago. But what changed my opinion about Howard..." He glanced down at the dark-haired infant boy in his arms, joggling him slightly. "Since I've become a parent, I find it a lot harder to respect a man who left his son wondering if he ever cared about him at all." 

Tony nodded, remembered what Loki was to Hel though he'd been able to give her so little - life, and pain, and stillness. But she loved him, and she knew he loved her. 

"You'd be good at this," Steve said into the contemplative silence. "Both of you, if you ever decided to have kids. I trust you with my kids. Reggie and Kat trust you with theirs. And you get that it's important to make sure you do all you can for them. I think, when you're ready, you'll be great dads. Or whatever you decide to call yourselves." He smiled a little at the strangeness that had become his life. 

"Thanks, Steve," Tony said, fighting to stay in this place of sincerity and not break the stillness with a joke. "Means a lot." 

"Thank you for this place," Steve answered. "It's pretty amazing. I'm sure the dragons are grateful to be here, too. I'm going to head up to join them, maybe make food for everyone, I'll have J let you know when dinner is likely to be done." And he started on his slow way back up the stairs, Abie in his arms. 

Tony huffed, leaning over the silent workbench. He was suddenly very tired. 

Loki came up beside him then, pulling him in close and holding him tight. "He is not wrong," the blue skinned figure said. "But don't dwell on it, either way. It is a question for another time, far from now." 

Tony smiled into Loki's chest, glad to have the now wrapped tight about him instead of being surrounded by the murky past and frightening future. 

"Thanks for being perfect for me," he said. 

"Thank you for being a place where I fit perfectly," Loki replied, sounding as if he, too, were pulling free of memories of the past. 

Tony shifted, looking to pick up the thread of the now and follow it to safety. 

"Hey," he said. "While we're down here, let's check out the apartment, see how well they matched the style to the rest of the place." 

"If you wish," said Loki, because architecture bored him and he would not deny it, but he led the way, just as eager to get out of that room full of ghosts as Tony was. 

And they escaped, through the apartment, to the yard, to find humans and dragons and Aesir all tumbling and playing together on the grass, and they added themselves to the pile, and for a while, forgot everything except the now.


	7. Chapter 7

Both those in the tower and the mansion slept amazingly soundly that night. 

The mansion was fairly well tested for its capacity to hold many Avengers in a pinch, since the Rogers household was all there for the dragons' comfort and safety, Darcy and Peter decided to hang around and take photos, and Tony and Loki opted to break in their new bed. Only Thor and Jane in Asgard and the three watching over Bea at the Tower were absent from their places. 

Steve cooked breakfast for the crowd in the Mansion's main kitchen, except for the adult dragons, who ate their meat raw. The small dragons, ten feet long at this point but still slim, flitted in and out of the house, stealing bacon and eggs from Steve's pan as often as they stole meat from their parents' breakfasts. 

It went against the grain for the adult dragons (Anghamarr especially) to accept food from humanoids; they were accustomed to hunting for themselves, and the taste of fattened livestock was for them associated with theft and vengeance. 

"I'm sure we can arrange a hunting trip sometime," Tony told them, "but for now this is much more convenient. With hunting, there's seasons and paperwork and stuff I don't know about - honestly I'm just gonna ask Jarvis or Pepper. But if you like deer, I hear there are some great places around here." 

"And further south, there's kind of a boar infestation, people might appreciate your help with that," said Steve, who had clearly been looking into options not only for feeding dragons, but for making use of their skills. 

Anghamarr made a pleased noise at that. "It will be pleasant, not only to hunt, but to do so with the approval of the people of this world," he said. "I will wait." 

"And it will be good to be able to teach the little ones to hunt without fear," agreed Hallkatla. "Before they develop too much of a taste for human food," she added, watching one of her children skitter by with a banana in his mouth. 

Daire flew by next, in full chase. "Mine," she cried. "Tyk, my food! Give it!" She threw her arms around the serpent. 

Tyk decided to surrender and spat the yellow fruit onto the grass. "What is it?" he asked. "It's not Aesir food." 

"Human fruit, good for babies and with pancakes," she summarized. "I'll share it." 

Tyk waited eagerly as Daire peeled the banana and set a portion of it on Tyk's waiting tongue. Tyk drew it into his mouth and chewed a bit, considering. "Yuck," he concluded. "Too sweet." 

"I _told_ you it wasn't for dragons," Daire said smugly, and bit into the remainder herself. 

Sif walked out onto the lawn in black jeans and an oversized blue sweater that was likely technically Steve's, carrying Abie at her side. "Where were you off to in such a hurry?" she asked Daire. 

"Tyk stole my banana, I had to avenge it!" Daire answered, slightly muffled by the fruit in question. 

"I'm not sure if the banana had more to fear from Tyk or from you," Sif commented, amused. 

Daire bounced excitedly. "Daddy, can I go flying today? I never flew here before!" 

Sif smoothed her daughter's golden-brown hair with her free hand as she considered. "You will have to ask Anghamarr, and also your Uncle Tony. It's not safe to fly here without an escort yet, and Uncle Thor is busy on Asgard." 

Daire bounded up to Anghamarr. "Angy, do you wanna go flying?" 

"I am eager to see more of this world which is now our home," the purple dragon answered. "I will gladly accompany you, Lady Daire." 

"Yessss!" Daire speeded to Tony's side. "Uncle Tony, will you fly with us?" 

"Sure will, Sprout," said Tony. "Wanna swing by the Tower, introduce your purple pal to the other Avengers? They're totally missing out." 

"Yeah! Maybe Aunt Nat will make a face." The game 'get Aunt Nat to make a face' was popular between Daire and Tony. It had yet to succeed. 

Tony turned to appraise Anghamarr. "Yep, I think Angy here just might do it," he concluded. He drained what was left in his coffee cup, and turned back to the house. "Gimme a couple minutes to finish breakfast and get suited up, yeah?" 

"I gotta put Ang's harness on," she replied in agreement, skipping off to get it. 

Tony went inside, put his mug in the sink, grabbed a couple of blueberries from a bowl and threw them in his mouth, gave Loki a quick kiss and a mumbled farewell, and went for his suit. 

"What are you up to now?" Loki called after him. 

"Gonna give a foreign representative a tour of the city," he said. He gave a mock-sigh. "Boring, I know, but duty calls." 

Loki laughed. "Bullshit, you're going flying with dragons!" 

Tony grinned back, always weirdly thrilled when Josh used Earth idioms, especially swears. 

He met Daire and Anghamarr out on the lawn inside the loop of driveway that came closest to the house, Daire in her harness and wiggling with impatience, and Ang looking dignified, but then it was hard for him not to. Suit on and faceplate up, he gave them a general idea of his plan. 

"I had Jarvis give the authorities a general idea of our flight plan - don't usually give 'em that much when it's just me, but I wanna make sure everything goes smooth today, right, guys? So we're gonna fly pretty low in over Long Island - that's where we are now - and into Manhattan, which is the one with all the buildings, kinda like the capital in Asgard only grey and rectangular? Except the awesome swooshy one that says Stark on it, which is where we're gonna land. We'll say hey, then fly back out, maybe play around out over the water for a while before coming back here. Sound like a plan?" 

Anghamarr dipped his great head, and Daire giggled, so Tony flipped down his faceplate and launched himself into the air. 

The other two followed, Ang's great wings unfolding and pushing at the air, and for a while they just flew, looking at the land and sea beneath them, but then Tony couldn't help showing off a bit, darting around Ang, rolling and whooping. After a glance at Daire, Ang joined in, gentle rolls and flourishes, nothing they hadn't done in the skies of Asgard. 

Tony called Clint as they approached the towers of Manhattan. 

"You guys up for some company over there?" Tony asked. "I'm coming in to the landing pad, got a couple of other faces with me too. Think you could round up a welcoming committee?" 

Clint chuckled. "Well, that's pretty vague. Got a pretty good idea of who might be flying with you today, though. Sure, we'll come up and say hey." 

* * *

Clint hung up his phone and turned to the others; Bruce was cleaning up the breakfast dishes, and he looked up at Clint with a small smile. Having seen Daire and Anghamarr in flight and how much they enjoyed it, even when flying over a city of wary people, he had a pretty good idea of what would be waiting for them on the common floor. The two Black Widows, in contrast, looked at Clint with wary curiosity. 

"That was Tony," he informed them. "And he's bringing company. You wanna go say hello?" 

"What kind of company?" Beatrix asked. 

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," said the archer with a smirk. 

An answering intrigued smile began on Natasha's face, and there was a rare spark in her eyes. She knew what they were in for now. 

Beatrix looked to her for cues. Natasha said, "This should be interesting," and led the way towards the elevator. 

When the four of them rounded that last corner and looked out onto the landing pad... Aunt Nat made a face. 

It wasn't very large or expressive, but it was definitely there, eyes widening in awe and mouth falling open just slightly. Daire, still on Anghamarr's back, was watching for it, and she beamed. 

Clint smiled, walking out to meet them. "Just like a caravan painting, all come to life," he said to Ang. "You are something else." 

Tony lifted his faceplate and grinned at the assembly. "Ladies and gentlemen," he crowed. "May I introduce the dragon Anghamarr." 

Bea... Bea was somewhere between horror and flat disbelief, and Bruce was the only one who had eyes on her, rather than the dragon. So he was the only one who saw it pressed down, and replaced with childlike wonder, and that worried him, more than he could say. 

But there wasn't really anything that he thought would help, at the moment, so he determined to just keep an eye out. 

* * *

After everyone had had their fill of examining Anghamarr's wings and asking him questions about dragons on Asgard, the three took off again, buzzing Oscorp headquarters just a bit before heading out to sea. They looped and sped and skimmed the water, and then, just as Daire was starting to look a bit worn, Ang announced that he was becoming fatigued and suggested that they head back. Tony had his suspicions about that, but he kept them to himself. 

When they landed, Steve was there waiting, and he came right up to help unbuckle her straps. "How was your flight? Beatrix like meeting Anghamarr?" Steve asked his daughter. 

Daire frowned slightly. "She's afraid of him," Daire told her mother. 

"Seemed pretty jazzed to me," said Tony. "Went right up to him and asked lots of questions. All smiles. Don't know where you're getting 'afraid'." 

Daire looked at Tony as she formulated an answer for him. " _She's_ not afraid of things the way _you're_ not afraid of things," she said at last. 

"Oh." Tony's eyes widened a bit. "Shit. I just got beat in emotional awareness by a four-year-old." 

"I'm almost five!" Daire corrected, slightly peeved. 

"Yeah, well, an almost-five-year-old then," Tony corrected, a bit irritable as well. 

"It happens," Steve said to Tony. "We think it has something to do with the Allspeak. You have to remember that it's not just words, it's very limited telepathy." 

Tony rolled his eyes. "Yep, that makes me feel much better, Steve, you just beat me at _science._ The guy from back in the days of _leaded gasoline._ Thanks for that." 

Steve shook his head, smiling a bit, knowing by now not to take Tony's attitude seriously. The billionaire had taken great pride in helping Steve to pick up technology and catch up on the significant scientific discoveries he'd missed. "Well, it's not like I understand the mechanics of it all. But when it comes to beating you at science, I'll take what I can get. It doesn't happen everyday, after all." 

"Damn right," Tony agreed, the swagger back in his voice. 

* * *

Beatrix had been the perfect, well-behaved little girl ever since the moment when she had caught sight of her first real dragon. 

It was worrying - all three of the Avengers serving as her guardians knew it. Bruce saw it in Natasha's eyes as they caught his, and in Clint's frown as he watched her walk back into the elevator, every motion subtly different. 

When they were back inside, Natasha asked her about her academic knowledge, which seemed mostly to focus on languages and computers and a basic grasp of the vocabulary of many fields. Bruce started some lunch, and Beatrix seemed to have developed a curiosity about his kitchen and how he cooked, because she spent the majority of that time lurking and subtly prying into things, asking him questions. 

Bruce knew she'd stolen something from one of his kitchen drawers while his back was turned. If it had been a knife, Jarvis would definitely have said something by now. So Bruce just watched her carefully as they sat down to eat. 

She was good; he almost didn't catch it. Natasha certainly already had, and had decided not to comment. Clint almost certainly had, but was following her lead. Beatrix appeared to be eating, and drinking her water, but she was actually stashing it away somewhere. She'd probably taken a plastic bag from the drawers. 

Bruce put down his own utensils when he realized. She looked at him with innocent eyes. 

"We won't force you to eat," he said. "You can stop pretending." 

She frowned when she realized she'd failed to deceive, that the other two were unsurprised by the proclamation. She settled back in her chair to watch them eat. 

Bruce took her plate and her glass and switched them with his own, continuing to eat as if nothing was wrong. But she'd already watched him prepare the food, and she clearly trusted nothing right now, including the evidence of her senses. She sat, sullen now, observing, not eating. 

This was going to be a problem. 

* * *

Darcy's tumblr was now chock full of pictures of the baby dragons exploring their new home on Earth for the first time, and a few of Anghamarr and Iron Man against the skyline of Manhattan, and the reactions were... not unexpected. Darcy's fans were vocal, very excited and very much pleased to see that their favorite dragons had made it to safety. But clearly, there were still many people who didn't get it, who thought the dragons were pets or wild animals in need of containment or actively treacherous alien invaders. 

She answered the questions she could, consulting the dragons freely when she didn't know something, and she even started a vlog with Tyk, who was picking up English better than his elders or his hatchmates. They were all curious, but Tyk stood out. When Daire found out she insisted on being "on the show," and Darcy figured it couldn't hurt, even though Daire's English pronounciation was a little garbled because of how heavily she relied on Allspeak. It made her sound more like the very young child she was. 

"I likes here," Tyk was saying. He tended to hiss more than the words called for, opposite of Daire. "I likes the grasses and things see over the fence." 

"When you libbd on Adgard you couldn't go outside berry much, 'caush your mama would get berry worried," Daire said, remembering. 

"Here is better," Tyk agreed. 

They could understand each other perfectly, since they were listening with Allspeak. And they made a very appealing pair in front of the camera. Darcy resorted to just filming the two of them, and soon Daire got out her schoolwork and began teaching Tyk the difference between Roman letters and runes. It was pretty adorable, and illustrated the dragon's intellgence. 

They needed the good press, as much of it as they could get. People might have been responding positively to the fact that dragons existed on other planets, but having six of them living on Long Island and one of the large, intimidating ones doing a flyover of Manhattan was a little much. Twitter was full of words like "dangerous" and "unknown factor" and "hazard to the public" and all the other things people liked to say when they were fine with something in theory but didn't like it going on in their backyard. 

Darcy was doing all she could for her sweeties, she thought as she uploaded the completed video. But if they were going to be left to live as they wanted, she might have to bring in the big guns. 

She decided she needed to talk to Pepper Potts. 

* * *

Beatrix got more and more on edge the longer she went without food or water. But the three of them refused to break Bruce's word to her that they wouldn't force her to do anything. 

She'd gone into Bruce and Clint's room, taken clothes that by no stretch of the imagination fit her, and examined them inch by careful inch before putting them on. There was a blue button-down of Bruce's, sleeves rolled up most of the way, and a pair of shorts belonging to Clint, cinched up with a braided leather belt. Clint watched her like the hawk he was named for, but didn't interfere. 

Then Bea strode to a spot on the kitchen floor, one with good sight lines, and she sat. 

Bruce decided to let her alone, and Nat was in no state of mind to reassure her about anything. But Clint had picked up the baton of guardianship, and he - he perched on the countertop, a couple of yards away from her spot, not too close but definitely present, and just talked to her, told stories. 

The story of how he'd met Nat, and about some of their missions together, and Phil Coulson, the man that had brought both of them into the SHIELD fold. First they were grounded in the things she knew, missions, spies and the Red Room, and gradually they wound out into the superhuman, the Serum and how Phil had helped find and revive Captain America, Thor's appearance on Earth, how he and the Hulk worked together in battle sometimes, how it was to see the Hulk transform and see him at work. 

Then he moved on to the magic, Darcy and Josh's powers, what he'd seen of them, how they healed in different ways. Talked about it like it was an everyday occurrence, the practical advantages of having a reversion healer, an adjustment healer and an expert in Earth medicine on the team (when Bruce was himself, that is), so that their strengths and weaknesses filled in for each other. 

She got more uncomfortable as the litany went on, wondering how they intended to back up these lies once the drugs had worn off.


	8. Chapter 8

Clint was used to being the talkative one, but Bea's lack of response was beginning to challenge even his endurance. 

"Let me try," Natasha said as evening began to darken the windows. "You get some rest." She patted Clint on the arm, waving him over to the couch where Bruce sat, reading on his tablet. 

Clint smiled, gratefully and a little wanly, and clambered down off the counter. "Thanks," he said, tapping her on the shoulder with a fist. Then he slouched back to sit on the couch, leaning into Bruce's side. Bruce reached an arm around him absently, pulling him closer. 

Natasha crouched down close to the cabinets, looking around the corner at Beatrix. 

"Black Widow," she said, "the world is much larger than the Red Room ever taught us. It frightens me too, sometimes." 

"I'm not afraid," Beatrix lied. 

"Being practical means admitting what's really going on," Nat responded. This was getting frustrating. 

Beatrix was tensing up again. "I don't know what's really going on. This is impossible. This isn't real, dragons aren't real." 

"Maybe not. But it's what we have to deal with." 

As soon as Natasha heard herself, she knew she'd made a mistake. She sounded like her own teachers. Harsh and demanding. She sounded like an opaque authority. 

Bea stood, not wobbling, although she'd been sitting folded up for hours and had yet to drink or eat anything. "Are you ready to tell me my mission, then?" she asked, leaning towards Natasha, accusation in her voice. 

Natasha couldn't find an answer, and just looked at Bea, composed but also helpless and strained. 

Beatrix narrowed her eyes. "If you don't have an objective for me, then what good are _you_?" she snarled, and took off for the fire stairs. 

"Bea, please," said Bruce, and stood to get between her and the exit. 

Bea very efficiently elbowed him in the groin. 

Pain shot through him, and he grabbed for control, but there were also calculations about her safety, about her chances outside the tower, with people who wouldn't understand what was going on in her head or why. He let himself go green. 

Beatrix's gaze flicked back at the growl that followed her now, too deep for any of the three guarding her. That turned into a double-take as her eyes found the towering green giant, just as Bruce's file had described, looming over her. 

She ran, but the Hulk caught her up, roaring at her. She fought back a scream. Instead she looked up at him, defiant, fascinated. 

She wasn't being crushed or eaten or even roared at any more. Instead, Hulk and Beatrix just glared at each other for a few long seconds. 

Eventually, "What do _you_ want?" she asked. 

"Stay here," the Hulk told her sternly. "No hurting team." 

Beatrix looked him up and down. At last she nodded. "You're the boss," she said. 

Hulk grinned, wide and terrible. Then he turned and set her on her feet between the two assassins who were now standing, watching them. 

Bea was shaking. 

"Not gonna fight us any more?" Clint asked her. 

"No," said Beatrix in a small voice, eyes still lingering on the Hulk. 

"Right then," he said, and lifted her up into his arms. "How about we go get a snack?" Upon her nod, he carried her back in the direction of the kitchen. 

Hulk lumbered carefully after them, keeping eyes on the girl. 

"He's not gonna hurt you," Clint reassured, rubbing Bea's back. "Specially not while I've got you. Unless you hurt me. He likes me a lot. Right, Big Guy?" Clint smiled genially up at Hulk. 

"Hulk love Hawkeye," the giant agreed. He sat in an open area of floor not in the kitchen proper, but with a good view of it. 

"Love you too, Brucey," Clint replied. 

Bea narrowed her eyes. "Is he one person, or is he two? Because the file says they're different, but you call them both Bruce." 

"Banner is Banner and Hulk is Hulk," the Hulk answered. "Bruce is always." 

"Yeah, confuses the heck out of me too," Clint said, pulling apples and peanut butter and pineapple coconut water out of the fridge. "But I love 'em both. All of Bruce." He rinsed apples, then tossed them to Natasha to cut. She did so silently, disappearing the knife when she was done. 

" _How_ can you be so... so _complacent!_ " Bea snarled, although she didn't push away from Clint and even grabbed up an apple slice to eat it greedily. 

"Huh," said Clint. "Not a word I'd use to describe any of us. What d'you mean by that?" 

"How can you choose who to trust and what to do when there's so much you don't _know?_ " she asked. 

Clint shrugged. "Nobody knows everything," he responded. "We all just do the best we can." 

"That's not good enough!" Bea squirmed out of Clint's grip and to the floor. "I don't know how to deal with Hulks and dragons! I can't fight them! I'm not good enough!" 

Hulk caught her up against his chest again, and she beat at his great muscles with her tiny fists, holding nothing back now, but the hits did little to disturb Hulk. "Feel smashy," he sympathized. 

He petted her back gently, and her anger wound down into great agonized sobs. 

Clint watched as Hulk's great green eyes flicked brown, his forehead crinkled in a very Brucey way. 'Bruce is always' was right. Especially since he had started practicing mental disciplines with the Jotunn contingent. Things flowed back and forth so much easier now. 

After she calmed, Hulk handed her back to Clint, and she looked so tired. Clint got her to eat just a bit more and drink some juice, and then he carried her off to bed in Bruce's guest room. 

Natasha was there when Bruce came back to himself. Hulk shuffled carefully to the couch and then let his form go, leaving Bruce falling backwards perfectly onto the cushions. It wasn't familiar enough to be comfortable, but it was becoming less of an ordeal. Bruce slumped into the cushions in relief, and then looked to the side to see Natasha leaning over the back of the couch with her chin on her hands. 

"I'm sorry," Natasha said before Bruce could speak. "That shouldn't have been necessary. I miscalculated." 

"It happens," Bruce answered. "It happens a lot, actually. And with some people, there is no right response. She's tough to predict. And angry, and confused. I doubt there's many people, or even any at all, who would have done better." 

"Thanks, Doc, but..." Natasha bit back the 'I wasn't good enough' that tried to leap to her tongue. Then she shook her head at her own predictability. 

"This is hard for you," Bruce observed. "I get that." 

"She's so much like me. And I don't want her to be. I don't want either of us to have to walk through that mire again." 

"So you want to help her," Bruce encouraged. 

"But I try to step in, and I just get caught right back in it all again." Natasha pushed her lips together. "I was frustrated with her because I get frustrated at myself when I'm like that. When I can't break old thoughts or old habits." Natasha bit her lip hard, squinting into the distance, maybe into the past. "I feel like I'm sliding back, like all those things I've tried so hard not to be, I'm just picking them back up, being around her. Like I'm losing all the headway I've made." 

Bruce shook his head. "It feels to me like you're opening up, letting us all see how much you're struggling. I think it makes you seem more human. Maybe you're losing something, but I hope you realize what you're gaining, too." 

Natasha looked at him with wonder hidden by annoyance and cool disbelief. "I'd never expect you to be the one to see the sunny side," she told him. 

"I've had to learn," he answered. 

She contemplated him wordlessly for a long time. 

* * *

In the morning, there were protesters outside the mansion. 

After breakfast, Steve got into his Captain America uniform to stand guard, and he ended up just pacing behind the gates and glaring at the angry mass of people. Reginunn and Hallkatla and their smallest daughter stayed safely tucked away in the hangar, but Anghamarr was too wary, and Tyk and Opha too curious, to stay inside. They lurked between the mansion and the hangar, peering at the crowd. 

"What's happening?" Daire asked Darcy, looking out the window at her mama. He was in uniform, which meant he was busy protecting people. 

"Hmm," said Darcy, sweeping up the tiny half-Aesir in her arms. "Well, there's a bunch of people who have a hard time understanding how awesome dragons are, and they came to tell us to send the dragons away again. Captain America standing there is basically just us saying 'no'." 

"I want to say 'no' too!" Daire immediately replied. 

"You did, by being in my show with Tyk, remember? Everyone saw how much you like dragons. That helped a lot, kiddo. This is like that except just standing guard and looking intimidating. Pretty boring job all round, I'm guessing." 

Daire frowned thoughtfully. Then she turned to Sif. "Daddy, I need my battle dress," she said. 

Sif looked at her appraisingly, then nodded. "Let us array you appropriately for this task," she said, and held out a hand. Darcy let her down, and they went to get her into the armor she'd worn for her challenge. 

Darcy looked out the window at the protesters in despair, and then she stepped into the library to make that call she'd been meaning to get to. 

When she got through, she said, "Okay, so, I know the Avengers segment of Stark PR is working on this dragon thing, but I just wanted to see if you had any ideas? Because this is getting actually scary." 

"I can understand that," Pepper replied. "I'm watching the mansion on the news. That's a lot of people reacting very negatively to the new reptilian additions to the Avengers household." She sighed. "Unfortunately, I think we've done just about as much as we can do at this point. The evidence is out there that dragons, and specifically these six we've invited to live in the mansion, are reasoning, responsible beings that don't intend any harm towards the public. The people who still aren't convinced are, to put it bluntly, probably not going to get it through their thick skulls. I hear there are some familiar faces there from the Hulk protests that still crop up here and there." 

"Jeez," said Darcy. "That's still a thing?" 

"Unfortunately, yes," answered Pepper. "Now and again. They're very persistent. At least most people have stopped taking them seriously." 

"Huh. And how do we make that happen with the dragon thing?" 

"Honestly, it's really just a matter of time. People need to see that the dragons are an asset and not a liability, by witnessing it for themselves in the long run. The only thing we can really do in the meantime is hope for a distraction. Something that will push speculation about the dragons off the first page for a while." 

"I could always start dating someone scandalous again," Darcy offered. 

"I don't think that'll quite do it - Tony's escapades stopped shocking people after a few years. Sex only has so much mileage. It's hard to get to the end of it, but still, we're up against huge mythological lizards at this point. I'm not sure if your sex life still has that kind of clout." 

"I could start dating several scandalous people at once," Darcy tried. "Or we could fake a drug scandal?" 

"I really don't think that is going to do anything for the image of the Avengers as a group that doesn't take unnecessary risks," Pepper said ruefully. 

"Point," Darcy agreed, grimacing. 

"Something will come up soon," Pepper assured her. "It's the nature of news." 

"Gotcha," Darcy said. "Thanks anyway, Pepper. Sorry to bother you." 

"No, it's fine, Darcy, really," Pepper replied. "It's nice to get gossip about Avengers life that isn't from Tony's perspective. A lot of the time, his side of the story is... a little skewed." 

"Right," said Darcy, laughing. 

"Call me if you need anything else," Pepper continued. "Or if you just want to chat. I'm serious. I could use a break now and then from dealing with distribution numbers and everything else it takes to run a company." 

"Will do," said Darcy. "Catch ya later, then." And she ended the call. 

It didn't necessarily make a lot of sense, but somehow she did feel better about things. 

* * *

Meanwhile, at the Tower, Natasha had slept lightly where she lay on Bruce's couch. So when Beatrix tiptoed out of the guest room, she sat up and made her presence known. Bea sat down beside her, and they sat in silence for a few minutes, not uncomfortable, simply contemplative. 

"What's going to happen to me?" Beatrix asked at last. 

"They say it's up to us to decide." Nat smiled self-mockingly at the girl. 

Beatrix sighed, contemplating her feet as they kicked at air. 

"It is scary here," she admitted. "But I think being scared here is better than being suck in the Red Room. I want to stay here, I want to be part of your team. You can teach me how to be a Black Widow like you." 

Natasha frowned down at her folded hands, then turned her head to regard Bea. "I'm sorry, Beatrix. I don't think that's going to work for us." 

Bea's answering frown was confused and a bit lost. "Why not? Why did you bring me back if you don't... don't you care? What happens to me?" 

"I do. And it might be difficult for me to entrust you to someone else. But, sweetie, I'm a Black Widow. I could only teach you to be what they were teaching you to be. I don't know how to give you a childhood. I never had one. But I hope that you still can. Not just a place on a team. A family to grow up with. And I can't be that." 

A memory came back to her, abruptly, of a hand rocking a cradle. 

"We can be friends," Natasha told her. "But I want to make sure you have a family, a real family." 

She put out a hand, and Bea put her smaller one into it, and they shook on it, agreeing on this compromise. 

Natasha hoped it was the right choice.


	9. Chapter 9

Daire walked out, solemn and dignified, serious as only a small child could be, arrayed in her armor and with her dragon-wing helm. She stopped beside her mother and glared at the crowd. 

She heard slithering behind her and the whole mass of people stopped yelling to gasp. She turned her head to see Opha's snout peeking over her shoulder. She smiled and ran a hand under the young dragon's chin. 

The crowd were yelling again, more urgently this time, trying to tell her mama that his child was in danger, that he was an idiot and a menace for letting his kid play with those monsters. 

Daire just looked up at Steve, whose eyes had narrowed slightly, but he wasn't giving any sign of hearing their screaming. 

So neither did Daire. She just went on glaring at them, letting Opha hide behind her. 

* * *

The three adults woke before Bea that morning, and they gathered in Bruce's living room to talk, Natasha perched on the coffee table, opposite the two boys who were side by side on the couch. 

"I need to decide what to do with Beatrix," she told them bluntly. "I need your help on this." 

"Thought you might want to keep her," Clint said, not sure what to do with this hesitant side of Natasha he so rarely saw. "You seem to get along." 

She pressed her lips together before answering. "I can't do it. I'm not... I'm not built right, Clint." 

He nodded. "It's not something you wanted or expected, I get that." 

"She should be wanted. That's why I thought of you." Her eyes flicked across both of them, evaluating their responses. 

Clint's eyes widened, and he looked over at Bruce. They'd talked about adopting, in the sort of far away 'eventually' terms that Clint suspected meant Bruce was never going to let himself have the life he wanted. But something had changed, for both of them, with Daire's crisis and how Bruce had reacted to it. 

Bruce frowned, but it was the thoughtful kind rather than the disapproving kind. Finally he looked up at Natasha again. "Are you sure about this?" 

"I'm very sure," she answered. "About both of you, about Beatrix. But mostly...." She looked at Clint now. "If I had the chance to grow up over again, I'd still want you as my family. So, will you do this for me? Will you let her be Beatrix Barton?" 

Clint swallowed, then nodded, looking her in the eyes steadily. She smiled back, a solemn expression with lips pressed together but nevertheless glad, and she leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. 

"You're my match, Clint," she said quietly. "You're the only person who sees me for what I am. Thank you for everything." 

Bruce felt the beginnings of jealousy stirring deep inside him, but he knew how important Natasha was to Clint and that getting in the way of whatever they were was just not an option. 

Then Natasha turned towards the doctor. 

"Bruce," she said, and her voice was uncharacteristically gentle, not in the light, careful way that came with some of her personas, but instead low and intense. "I can't think of anyone I'd rather have protecting my... my blood. My unexpected treasure. My Beatrix. Love her the way I can't. Please. Love her, and I know she'll be safe." 

Natasha kissed him on the cheek as well, and Bruce could feel the very slight tremble of her hand on his opposite cheek. 

Bruce took a breath. 

"I do already," he said. "I'd be honored." 

Clint whooped, startling the other two, and caught Bruce up in his arms. "We're gonna be dads together," he said in a voice that was quiet but intense, and filled with awe. 

Bruce laughed in startled joy. "Yeah," he agreed. 

"Hey, you wanna get married?" Clint asked in the same tone of quiet excitement, cupping Bruce's cheek with his hand. 

Bruce's eyes widened, and he looked at Clint for a while, trying to decide if he was being serious. Clint just looked right back. 

"Yeah," Bruce said. "Yes, I want to marry you." 

They kissed, unconscious of the world around them, until they heard a dirisive noise, from two different directions but almost identical. Nat, from her perch on the coffee table, was looking at them with amused tolerance, and Bea, from around the corner of an armchair, with badly hidden glee. 

Natasha looked at the younger Black Widow. "Did you gather all the relevant intelligence?" she asked with a raised eyebrow. 

"You got me a family," Bea said. " _Your_ family." She looked slightly awed, although she tried to hide that too. 

Natasha nodded. "They are the best available," she said, "or I wouldn't have chosen them to take care of _me_." 

"Bea," said Bruce, holding out a hand to her. "You're part of this. We want you to be our family." 

Beatrix went to them, still hesitant and stiff, but once she was in her new family's arms... she began to feel that seeing dragons and hulks might just be all right. 

* * *

The dragons were finally pushed off the front page by the headlines, "Two new Avengers engagements!" "Crown prince of Asgard chooses his princess at last!" and, "Gay Avengers: Out, Proud, and Tying the Knot!" 

Darcy's blog was soon full of pictures of Jane's enormous engagement ring, and the two couples kissing, and a general overload of cuteness. 

It wasn't all positive, of course. They waited a couple of months for the backlash of _that_ to die down, but it wasn't as bad as it had been when Tony and Josh had announced that _they_ were a couple. At least Bruce and Clint were human... most of the time. 

The two of them got married in a small private ceremony while Thor and Jane were still in the beginning planning stages for their own monster of a wedding, not even exchanging rings, just quiet promises. Bea was in attendance, in a dress she'd picked out for the occasion, white with yellow flowers. Clint told her she was allowed to be the prettiest, because she was part of this, and it wasn't like either of them was planning on wearing a white dress. Bea smirked, but inside, she felt like sunshine. 

After that, they made the adoption official, and announced it to the press. 

That was, of course, somewhat rocky. 

* * *

There were questions, of course, about where she'd come from, why there was no paper trail. They thought it best to tell the truth where they could, that Bea was found in Russia, on a mission, that she had been a subject of experimentation and that getting her to safety had taken precedence over paperwork. 

Natasha was there at one of the press conferences, as support, as a fellow Avenger. But the gathered reporters wanted to see her as a woman and a Russian, someone who might be concerned for the child. And they asked her dumb questions because of that. 

"Are you really all right with a kid being taken from your homeland and being raised by strangers, one of which is the Hulk?" 

"Beatrix has no positive connections to anyone in Russia. She also has special needs, which my fellow Avengers are uniquely equipped to acommodate. The Hulk is no danger to her. Bruce Banner has... an incredible amount of patience, and I believe that will be a necessary asset." 

"But these are your teammates. Isn't it possible you're biased?" 

Something broke, Natasha's careful veneer broke. "Beatrix Barton is MY DAUGHTER and there is no better family for her than these men. These men are the ONLY people I would trust her with. So get that through your empty gossip-spewing heads." 

The reporters were quiet for a moment as they processed that, and then launched into another flurry of questions. But Natasha was done. She stalked back through the doors. 

She hadn't been angry like this in a long time. She hadn't been _angry_ like _this_ since... she was a child. 

Beatrix was in the green room, watching the press conference on her laptop. She looked up when Natasha came in. 

"You love me," Beatrix said. 

Natasha looked at her, startled, not knowing what to say. Eventually she shook her head slightly, more a bewildered gesture than a denial. "I don't know what love means. Even if that were true, I don't think I'd be able to say it without lying. And I don't want to lie." 

"You wouldn't be. You get angry like my dads do. When they're worried about me. I learned that. You're like them. You're my mom, and you love me." 

"Please don't," said Natasha. "I'm not a parent. Don't look at me when you're deciding what to be. I'm a paper doll. I am what I'm dressed up to be, especially in front of the public. I was there for your dads. They needed me to be your mother for a minute." 

Beatrix considered her for a moment. "I don't believe that," she said, and there was something in that look, in that blunt confrontation, that reminded Natasha of Clint. She was looking to him, then. She'd be fine. 

"I watched you," Bea continued, indicating the screen. "You were human then. You were real. You can teach me." 

"No, baby," said Natasha, scooping up Beatrix and setting her in her lap as she settled into the couch. "You teach me. You taught me that. You teach me how to be young." 

"I love you too," Beatrix told her with a considering frown. 

Natasha gave up. Maybe they could both be children, at least for a little while. 

* * *

They'd all been living at the mansion when they could, Bruce, Clint and Bea in their basement apartment, Steve, Sif, Daire and Abie on the top floor, the dragons in the hangar, and the rest of them coming and going from the main two floors. It was cozy. 

Bea and Daire and the young dragons tumbled around the place together, sometimes play-fighting, sometimes training in earnest, because none of them had the luxury of being ignorant of the dangers of their place in the universe. 

But here, at least, they were relatively safe. They were accepted. They were loved. 

They were all citizens of other places, more dangerous places that they could never completely leave behind. But they all, at last, belonged here. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is, more than likely, going to be it for a while in terms of the Midnight Mystery series. I have many plans for the characters in the future, but in the middle of writing this story I realized that my OC's had become its core, and that I could center stories around them pretty much as they are, without actually infringing Marvel's copyright. So I'm working on some original novels with Beatrix and Daire and Abie and the dragons and many more characters that were conceived for the future of this series but who can carry their own novels, I hope.


End file.
